


Deep As the Road is Long

by desperationandgin



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, other characters pop up but are they worth tagging?, rated P for Pain, slowish burn, you may need facial tissue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2019-11-27 02:32:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 51,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18188630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperationandgin/pseuds/desperationandgin
Summary: James Fraser, a single father in Scotland, takes his ill daughter to the United States in the hopes that Claire Randall (an expert in her field of medicine) can save her life.





	1. April 2015 (Part I)

**Author's Note:**

> First thing: @smashingteacups has been an invaluable medical (and otherwise) beta. Her real-life occupation has helped me more times than I can count and for that, I'm very grateful. Thank you!!
> 
> The fic title (and story itself) is inspired by the song _Nobody Knows_ by the Lumineers.

Life becomes a cruel thing when the best day of your life is also, horrifically, the worst.

On a plane heading from Scotland to Boston ( _one stop in Newark; he can handle_ one), Jamie looks at his sleeping daughter, wanting to reach out and touch, to let his fingers run through red curls but stops himself, not willing to risk waking her when she needs the rest so badly. The day she was born and that tiny wail of hers went out to the heavens he’d wept with joy; she’d been nearly two full months early and the fear of it, that she was so small, had choked his heart. But to hear her cry was reassuring. A brief calm before his wife began bleeding and bleeding, so much and so quickly that he didn’t even realize it when his baby moved from his arms to a nurse’s and was whisked away.

 _Placenta Previa_. They’d been told as long as they monitored her for distress his wife would be fine, that it was rarely something considered fatal. He wasn’t even pushed out of the room, it happened so quickly. She was alive, _giving life_ , and then she was gone, monitors screaming their witness of her death.

Annalise, pretty and vibrant, someone he met by sheer chance and never thought would be a serious long term relationship. He’d happily been wrong when they married, but then she’d died, leaving behind a born-too-soon daughter who Jamie couldn’t leave on her own in the hospital, in her incubator. He’d been afraid of being wrong, of finding out that his child had, in fact, died with her mother. And so he missed his wife’s funeral, her burial; her parents had taken her back to France from Scotland and Jamie wouldn’t leave their infant to go so far. Even for as much time as he spent watching that tiny chest move, he couldn’t think beyond Annalise’s death, and so he never came up with a name. When finally asked to complete the birth certificate he’d only shaken his head. He and Anna had thought upon seeing their child they would know her name, so nothing was picked. They were supposed to do it together, both of them. He didn’t know how to do it alone.

The nurses started calling his baby ‘Faith’ and Jamie had let them. It felt cruelly ironic, but he couldn’t think of something better, and then he became used to it. She was in that hospital almost the entire first month of her life, but she’d been strong, and then he’d gone home with her to an apartment missing its brightness despite being ready, bursting at the seams to have a child grow within its walls. He hadn’t been able to stay, and with nowhere else to go, he’d sought refuge in the childhood home his sister and her family still lived in. 

_Lallybroch_. That’s where he healed and cried and lost, but found his soul again. Faith made him strong, made him laugh and smile with every coo and sleepy snuggle into his shoulder. For four years she’s been perfect, his shadow. They’d stayed with Jenny and her family, all of them a balm that eased aches as they arose. Faith grew up running with cousins, being on horses from the time she could hold her own head up, feeding chickens and playing in dirt. She was perfect until she wasn’t.

When she stopped eating much, Jamie was assured by Jenny that all three of her children went through that same pickiness, complaining about eating at the same age. “I dinna ken who came up with ‘threenagers,’” she’d stated. “When _fournados_ are worse.” She liked to quote things at him that she’d seen on Pinterest as an inspirational poster. He allowed it. But still, he worried about his little girl every time she said she wasn’t hungry, each time she complained of a tummy ache. He even took her to the pediatrician, and after knocking her knees, listening to her heart, and checking her throat, he’d assured Jamie of the same thing: when she was hungry, she would eat. 

But she never did. She was full after a bite or two, she stopped playing as much, fell asleep easy in his arms. Then, when Jenny said she was worried and that he should get a second opinion, he got nervous. Afraid because his daughter was going gaunt before his very eyes and there was no _good_ reason for that. He made the appointment with his sister’s pediatrician and two days later, when it happened, when the doctor said he wanted to run some ‘routine’ tests, Jamie knew. His baby was sick and something was very wrong. He’d stayed with her through everything he could, telling her stories about fairy hills and magical unicorns, trying to make himself believe she wasn’t ill. Hoping that maybe, if he willed it to be so, there would be an easy answer.

Now as they fly to America, he contemplates what his daughter’s diagnosis means and looks down at his open laptop, typing _Neuroblastoma, stage 4_ into the search bar. Cancer that’s spread beyond where it started. There are pages he’s looked at so many times that they pre-fill but always he reads, giving himself a crash course in what radiation and chemo and port lines are. He could get angry, beat the first doctor to a bloody pulp for not catching it sooner, but it won’t give him the time back. The second doctor had advised in Scotland that there wouldn’t be much they could do at their facility, but in the States – Boston specifically – there was a pediatric oncologist ahead of her time; he offered to write a referral. 

Now, halfway into the flight, Jamie types this new doctor’s name into Google: _Claire Randall, doctor, Boston_. The top links take him to the hospital where she works, photos of her. She’s young, he thinks, only a little older than he is, maybe. Could he have had the patience and fortitude to go through medical school for this profession at his age? Likely not. She looks focused in every photo he sees of her, and he lets that reassure him somehow. She’s serious about her job, determined. Scrolling down a bit more on the Google search, he catches a link with _read obituary_ trailing at the end, and for a moment his heart sinks until the rational part of his mind kicks in. Of course, she’s not dead; he’d called, he’d made the appointment for Faith through her office. Out of curiosity, he clicks.

_Franklin Wolverton Randall, a noted historian at Harvard University, was killed Sunday night in an automobile collision. He is survived by his wife, Claire Elizabeth Randall. Services will be held…_

Glancing at the date of the article, Jamie realizes it was published nearly four years ago. Tabbing back to her photo, he feels a pang of sadness for her, to be a widow that young, but then again, so is he. He shares something horrible in common with the woman he hopes will save his daughter’s life. 

The rest of the flight is spent going between reading reviews of Doctor Randall’s level of expertise and watching his daughter breathe, and when they land he gathers Faith close, never putting her down until they’re situated in a cab. The hospital is first, exhausted as he is, then the hotel. He’d insisted he would be fresh, ready to talk things out with the doctor and her team of nurses, and now he’s sitting with Faith in his lap in a waiting room filled with the lingering smell of antiseptic and too-bitter coffee. When their names are called, finally, Faith’s asleep again and Jamie follows the nurse to what looks like a conference room. He’s nervous, unsure of what to expect as he waits, fingers lightly rubbing the back of his daughter’s head. He can’t have flown all this way only to be told there is no course of treatment.

At the sound of high heels coming down the hallway, he looks up in time to see Claire Randall enter the room. His first impression is that the photos of her online didn’t do her enough justice. His next thought is that she looks ready to fight. Not him, no, but this cancer gripping his daughter.

“It’s nice to put a face with your name, Mr. Fraser, and with Faith,” she says as she settles herself beside him in a chair. She visually assesses him as well, then shakes her head when he appears to be trying to coax his daughter to open her eyes. “Don’t wake her, there’s no reason for it. I’ve read over her file, but can you tell me what a normal week is like for her? How much she sleeps and eats, how active she is?”

He’s surprised by how fast this doctor cuts to the chase, but it’s all he wants to talk about anyway: how to fix his daughter. He explains that she _doesn’t_ eat, that she hasn’t had a full meal in so long that she’s lost too much weight and has no energy. “She sleeps more than anything,” he adds, forehead creasing with the pain of recounting his baby going downhill so quickly.

After a moment of writing, Claire looks up at him, a soft, kind smile on her face as her gaze goes from him to Faith and back again. “I have an idea of how to proceed, and I do think, Mr. Fraser, that it has a strong probability of working. She’s a very resilient little girl.”

“Tell me what the plan is, then? I need to ken, no’ just sign her up for things wi’ out understanding.”

Claire leans forward, leveling her gaze at him. “I would like to start her on a six-week course of chemotherapy as soon as three days from now. Tomorrow, with your permission, we’ll take some stem-cells from her, freeze them, and at the end of her chemo give her a transplant with those same cells. If it works and all goes well, we should see good results a few weeks later.”

He studies her critically, his hold tightening on Faith. The floodgates open then, questions pouring out of him, things he’s wondered about, everything he’s feared. What her odds of living are ( _about 50/50_ ), what the side effects of all of this will be ( _fatigue, hair loss, nausea, vomiting, a whole list of others_ ), but the question he can’t ask, the one he wants an answer to the most, has no answer.

Why _his_ daughter? Why, after losing Anna, is his daughter so ill? Was she a conduit for so much of his hurt and pain and anger that she got sick with it?

It’s a ridiculous thought, but one he can’t help having.

“Ye have true confidence in this plan, then?” he asks, needing to be sure. This is his flesh and blood, he can’t afford to stay silent. The doctor’s patience with him, not once looking put out or seemingly anxious to move on, has put him at a bit of ease, but trust he’s not sure she has yet. He _trusted_ Faith’s first pediatrician.

Reaching out, her hand presses to his forearm, looking him right in the eyes, unwavering. “I do, Mr. Fraser. I think this is our best shot.” It’s one of the only shots, really. “I know it’s terrifying to place your daughter in someone else’s care, but I promise, I will take care of her. You will know every step, every change to the plan, each addition. There will be very hard days, but I will get you both through them. All you have to do is believe that I can do it, that I can take care of you both. I wouldn’t come to the table and waste your time with something less than our best option.”

Never letting his eyes drift away from her, Jamie’s quiet, rolling it over in his mind. He’s gone through very hard days, and unfairly, his daughter was his strength. He has to give that back to her. “I’ll sign the paperwork now,” he says, nodding toward the forms.

When she slides the consent paperwork to him, her voice is soft and reassuring. She can’t promise everything will be fine for Faith, but she can do this. “This is terrifying. All you have is my word and my confidence that I will give your daughter everything I have.”

As he signs, handwriting slightly stilted because of his hold on Faith, he presses his lips to the top of his daughter’s head.

“I’m holding ye to it.”


	2. May 2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faith's first medical procedure with Claire leads to a brief conversation between her father and the doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I've decided based on feedback and getting over a writing hurdle (which I personally thought would take longer) that I'll be posting 2x a week! Thursdays and Sundays.

There’s a vested interest Claire has in all of her patients and their families, a caring that runs deep for her. She can’t help it; she spends so much time trying to stave off a parent’s worst nightmare, she fights that battle with everything she has, and for herself, finds it impossible not to care for the family at large. In her own way, she tries to take care of the adults giving so much of themselves for the chance at a happy and healthy child again. Some doctors practice with a sense of detachment and they’re very good at what they do, but she’s never been able to keep herself so separate from her patients’ lives. It’s no different now as she makes her way down the hallway of the hospital.

Looking at her watch, she shifts a small bag in her hands. In about an hour, she’ll be drawing blood from Faith Fraser, the first in a series of things that would be scary for a just-turned-five-year-old; these things hurt, someone sticking her with needles and giving her medicine which makes her feel terrible when she already doesn’t feel well. It has and always will gut Claire, that someone so small goes through so much just for a chance at life. Walking into the room after knocking, she smiles softly, and for a brief moment her heart seems to tighten at the sight of Faith’s father cradling her close, softly rubbing her back.

“A wee bit of nerves,” he explains with a wan smile.

“Oh, well, that’s understandable,” Claire responds, walking to the side of the bed. “It’s why I made sure to get my hands on the very last magic elephant,” she says, shaking the bag a bit. When Faith raises her head, seeming curious, Claire pulls out a small, plush, grey elephant. “I know it looks perfectly normal, but when you hold him — or her, you get to decide — it’ll make you feel _very_ strong.”

Faith smiles and reaches out, taking the elephant, murmuring her quiet thanks after her father prompts it.

“What do ye think, _mo bheannachd_? Boy or girl?”

She contemplates it, holding the stuffed animal to her chest. “Boy,” she decides. “His name is…”

While she thinks about it, Claire catches Jamie’s eyes and smiles just a little before looking back at Faith.

“Trunky,” the little girl finally announces.

“You happen to be very good at naming things,” Claire declares. “Trunky will be there for you through everything, and if you’re afraid, you just hold him tighter, all right?”

When Faith nods it’s a slight thing, leaning against her father again and holding the stuffed animal close.

Now, Claire’s attention switches to Faith’s father. “Today we’re drawing blood, that’s all. But I would like to see what you think about putting a port in her chest to better deliver the chemo.” She explains the advantages, the disadvantages ( _not having to stick Faith over and over again, being able to administer other medications through it, but needing to install it surgically._ ) and that it’s his choice. “It’s a very short surgery we could do tomorrow and then repeat when we remove it.”

Jamie hasn’t stopped looking at Claire as she explains everything, appreciating the way she breaks it down for him, tells him what it involves. A part of him can’t help but register that she doesn’t speak down to him, keeps him from feeling daft. “It sounds like the best choice,” he considers, but he sounds unsure, and he wishes, not for the first time, that he had someone with him to make the decisions every now and again so it isn’t all on his shoulders.

She appreciates his carefulness, his questions. All parents and guardians approach the overwhelmingness of cancer in their own way, but he’s thoughtful about it. “I do think in the end it will be better than so many pokes. There’s a lot she’ll need through an IV, not just the chemotherapy. After it's in and the area heals up, it shouldn’t bother her. She might be able to feel it, but it won’t hurt her on a day to day basis.”

A surgery, his small lass being cut into. It makes his stomach feel as though it might come up through his throat, but he nods a little, ducking his head to press his lips to Faith’s forehead. “I agree, then. To the port.”

Reaching out, Claire’s hand squeezes his shoulder, trying to be reassuring. “I’ll schedule a time for it tomorrow.” It isn’t the first decision he’s had to make and it certainly won’t be the last, so she changes the subject to try and give him room to breathe. “I took the time to swing by the apartment complex across the road. They offer housing for families. I thought it might be better than a hotel. Something you two can truly call home for a while.” She hands him a brochure and a business card from the pocket of her lab coat.

Surprise registers on his face as Jamie takes the information. “That’s verra kind of ye, Doctor,” he murmurs, giving the document a cursory glance. “Do ye do this for all the parents?”

“Only the ones who flew here all the way from Scotland,” Claire assures him with a teasing smile, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Ye came highly recommended. I reckon that means ye ken a little about what you’re doing,” Jamie retorts, and he’s teasing but also serious. He has to believe the high praise, the glowing reviews on the internet. He has to believe in something that means his daughter will beat this.

Leveling with him, Claire’s voice is quiet but determined. “Faith is my patient, but you are the person who loves her most in this world. You are here alone with her and you deserve to be taken care of by someone.” She’s noted the wedding ring he still wears but has yet to see a wife. That could mean anything - after all, she still wears hers.

That she cares beyond the doctoring is surprising to him in a way he didn’t expect. She has a heart for her patients, he can already see it in the way she cares about Faith. That heart seems bigger than he assumed. Before he can respond, there’s a knock on the door, a phlebotomist entering to assist Claire. Every step, every aspect of how the blood draw will work is explained, and before they start, Claire looks at Faith again, reaching out to press a hand to the top of her head. “Is Trunky ready?”

The little girl presses the stuffed elephant to her chest. “He’s ready,” she says bravely. There are times she whimpers as she’s being stuck but before the procedure is even over, she’s dozing off and on. 

Claire glances over at Jamie. “How are you doing, Dad?”

“I feel…” _Helpless. Useless. Powerless._ “...like my heart’s beating on the outside of my chest.”

She has no response to that, sympathy tugging at her own heart as she begins to wrap up the procedure. When she doesn’t speak, he continues.

“I didna pick her name,” he begins, nervously babbling details about their personal lives because the silence feels too big in the small room. “Nurses began calling her Faith while she was in the NICU and it stuck. I’m trying to believe her name alone will get her through the worst of everything.”

“She will get through this because of _you_ ,” Claire determines as she pulls off her gloves. “Was she premature when she was born?” The curiosity has her asking, wanting to understand why nurses would name his daughter, even though it’s truly none of her business.

“Aye. By eight weeks. She was born, then my wife, she began to bleed--” Jamie looks at his hands, closing his fist on the left before opening it again slowly, staring at the silver band there.

He doesn’t need to say anything else. Claire closes her eyes briefly; Christ, this man has been through it, more than one person should have to deal with in a lifetime. “There. We’re all done,” she says gently, rather than try to comment on something so personal when she hardly knows him. “And I’m here to tell you that preemies are fighters for their entire lives.” Whatever she can do, whatever she can say to help him believe his daughter has a fighting chance, she’ll do. 

Now that he can sit close again, Jamie takes residence right at his daughter’s side. She’s been a fighter from the moment she was born, and now will be no different. It’s a belief that pulses through him with every strong beat of her heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Next chapter in a few days.


	3. June 2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie and Claire build their connection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a short chapter but important for character building nonetheless!

Six weeks of watching his daughter be the bravest lass he’s ever seen in his life has changed a fundamental part of Jamie. There are days he believes Faith is stronger than he is, in the way she endures and assures _him_ she’s fine. The day he shaved off her long red curls he cried, but she immediately tugged on a sparkling pink baseball cap and went on about her day. It amazes him constantly that even though she’s tired, excitement lights up her face when something pleases her. It hasn’t escaped his notice, either, how much she smiles every time Claire enters a room.

They’ve moved on from _Doctor_ and _Mr._ as formalities and Faith calls her ‘Doctor Claire.’ Most times she checks in there’s a small gift for his daughter, something to keep her occupied. Books and paper dolls, little crafty things she can do easily while receiving treatment, soft pajamas, blankets and fuzzy socks. The incredible thing, to Jamie at least, is that Faith is far from her only patient, and from what he’s been able to glean, she gives every child the same attention, the same care. Never a moment has gone by when he thinks she isn’t completely focused on his daughter. It does something for him to see her heart, to know how good and kind she truly is. When she drops by now to check in, it’s easy for him to speak with her, to open up, for both of them to trade stories. By the time the chemo treatments are over, he knows she was an only child, that she was born in England but was always drawn to the idea of Boston, and that her favorite color is yellow. He’s told her things in return about home, about his large family courtesy of his sister having so many children. She knows he owns a bookstore that his brother-in-law is currently running for him, and that he has a golden lab named Skye.

They both know things they don’t mention. He knows she’s a widow, she knows he is as well. It’s between them but not spoken. The days she comes to watch over Faith receiving chemo, and his wee lass is too tired to do anything but doze, are the times Jamie wonders about Claire the most. She’s quiet, holds Faith’s hand and looks over charts obsessively to be sure they’re right. That’s when he’s curious about whether or not she threw herself into this work after the death of her husband; if she found it a solace. He never asks, and the silence between them on those days is a shared silent strength for his daughter.

The day of Faith’s stem-cell transplant, in the wake of it as she sleeps in the hospital bed, Claire arrives, knocking softly before letting herself in. Jamie looks up from where he’s sitting and greets her with a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes as she walks forward.

“How’s our patient doing?” she asks, looking at vitals and such, but more importantly, just stroking Faith’s arm tenderly.

“She’s worn out, but told me she wants to draw when she wakes. Already planning ahead,” he says fondly, proudly.

Claire sits beside him, leaning forward to try and catch his gaze. “And how are you?” she asks gently.

For a while he says nothing, just watches Faith breathe. The question feels nearly impossible to answer, but he tries. “I hate no’ knowing right now if it worked. If she’ll be well. It takes weeks, ye said?”

Her heart goes out to him and she nods slowly. “It does. I wish I could tell you today, Jamie. I want to be able to.” She looks from him back to his daughter, smiling to see Trunky tucked up against her chest. “What I can tell you is that if she’s making plans for later, it means she’s feeling well enough to see beyond wanting to simply lay down. It’s good that she’s looking forward to sitting up and drawing.”

The hint of a smile on Jamie’s face is bigger now, and he looks over at Claire. “My mother was a bit of an artist. She’d be over the moon to ken her granddaughter is drawn to it.”

“Your mother’s back in Scotland?” She knows that’s where his sister is, anyway.

“Aye, in a way. She died when I was a lad. During childbirth.” His eyes are focused not on Claire or even Faith, but a spot across the room.

Claire closes her eyes, mentally kicking herself, but in the same thought process aching for him. His wife died the same way his mother did, and she wonders how much one man should have to endure.

“My father died before I was married,” Jamie continues as if reading her mind and feeling her ache. 

It’s too much; he’s lost _too much_ , and Claire clears her throat. “My parents both died when I was about Faith’s age,” she shares. “I don’t even remember them, really. They died in a car accident, and then my husband died the same way.” There’s a sudden halt of her words as she looks at Jamie, realizing they both have something in common beyond being young widows. Their spouses died in similar ways to their parents, and it’s an odd thing to share with a person. For a moment her gaze is one of slight wonder and he looks back at her the same way. She can feel him studying her, trying to better understand her for the first time.

“I didna realize… I mean, I kent it, about your husband.”

“Google,” they both say at the same time, before smiling sadly but genuinely at one another. He isn’t the first parent to thoroughly devour any information about her online he could find. It _is_ the first time she feels as though she’s truly seeing _him_ , the way his smile tugs at his eyes when he isn’t simply going through the motions. He’s still tired, she can see it, but the moment was real. Both of them look up as Faith shifts in her sleep, pressing her small face in against Trunky and smiling just a little.

“She loves that elephant ye gave her. Never lets it out of her sight. I had to wash it the other day and she was the most sullen child ye ever did see,” Jamie says with a quiet laugh.

Claire smiles in satisfaction at that. “I hope my gifts aren’t causing too much trouble for you?” She tries not to overstep, but for some reason, in the case of Faith Fraser, she can’t seem to help herself.

“No, it’s appreciated. We came here wi’ out much. Just clothes, really. I keep telling her that all of her things are still waiting for her at home, waiting for her to get better.”

Reaching out, Claire’s hand covers his for a moment, long enough to squeeze reassuringly as she looks at him. “I am doing everything in my power, Jamie, to make that happen. I need it to happen, for both of you.”

For a fleeting moment, he wonders what happens to her when Faith is well enough to leave, but the thought passes and he squeezes her hand in return. He hasn’t said the words out loud because he’s been afraid of a setback, but she’s done nothing wrong by his daughter these past six weeks, so now the words come easily. Nodding, his gaze goes back to his child.

“Aye. I trust ye, Claire.”


	4. July 2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire goes above and beyond in taking care of Faith. Jamie notices.

It’s been incredible to watch little Faith Fraser begin to feel well again. Before, when Claire saw and spoke with her there was underlying exhaustion, tiredness behind every movement. Engaging with her left a pang of residual guilt because she could see the want to sleep in Faith’s eyes. But the day she left the hospital with Jamie, her hand in his, there was nothing but happiness and excitement. They’re still waiting to discover if the stem cells took but knowing she’s going home to have a few normal days is incredible. And then, Claire finds herself missing, very badly, being able to stop by and speak with Jamie Fraser.

He’s become a part of her routine, and it isn’t until she has two coffees in her hand one morning that she realizes he’s gone back to the apartment for now, that he’s likely basking in watching cartoons with his daughter in their own space, or reading and cuddling because he can hold her more easily now. Putting the extra coffee down, Claire walks to her office and makes a morning out of visiting her other patients, slipping toys to the children, sharing some tears of frustration with parents. She needs a catharsis afterward, something to do that eases the heartache of some of her hardest cases and finds herself ordering sets of children’s books online, toys that serve a purpose and will help with reading and writing, and a few funny looking hats. When her box arrives a few days later, she takes it directly to Jamie’s apartment.

It isn’t until she’s knocking that she realizes this might be inappropriate, to have looked up the housing number and to now be dropping by. But Faith is still her patient and Claire still cares about her outside of checkups and hospital stays. There’s a moment she thinks about just dropping the box at the door and walking away but then he’s greeting her and Faith exclaims happily from the couch in the background her delight at seeing Doctor Claire.

“I bought a few things for Faith. I hope you don’t mind,” she explains, for some reason finding herself blushing a bit at Jamie’s gaze.

“No, I dinna mind,” is the reply as he steps aside, dishtowel in hand. “Ye only just missed a gourmet dinner of scrambled eggs and toast.”

“Is her stomach bothering her?” Claire immediately asks with a touch of concern.

“It’s my favorite,” Faith pipes up on her own, reassuring Claire with the brightest smile.

It makes her heart swell to see this child so happy and she kneels in front of her. “Well, if it’s your favorite then you should have it any time you want. I brought you surprises.” Relocating beside her on the couch, Claire pulls back the flaps of the box and lets Faith dig in, glancing at Jamie once and smiling softly.

Each little exclamation of _daddy, look!_ makes Jamie smile, happy she's excited. He responds in kind each time but can’t take his eyes off of Claire. She’s under no obligation to him or to Faith when they’re not within the confines of the hospital, and yet here she is. Still caring, still doing what she can to make sure his daughter is happy. She looks different outside of the hospital somehow, softer. He can see that even with her hair straight there are rogue curls revealing the natural shape. This isn’t an act, this isn’t a doctor simply caring for a patient. This is Claire, forever connected now to his daughter and loving her. At the realization, Jamie finally looks away and goes back to the kitchen to finish cleaning things, letting them have some time alone. He can hear them both chatting to one another and then, gradually, he only hears Claire speaking. Making his way back to the living room, there’s a moment he’s sure his heart stops for a beat to see Faith with her head in Claire’s lap, peacefully asleep while the top of her head is being stroked, _Alice in Wonderland_ read aloud in a steady but quiet voice. It’s the first time Jamie lets himself think that his daughter’s doctor is bonny.

Pausing when he comes back into the room, Claire smiles and speaks softly. “She made it about three pages.” Carefully and with ease, she relocates Faith to the end of the couch and makes sure she’s comfortable before standing. “I should go. I really just wanted her to have all of this.”

Jamie nods and walks her to the door but then stops, studying her intently. “Thank ye for doing that. Ye dinna have to take care of her like this and it means more to me than I can say.”

“I care about her, Jamie. She’s…” Claire looks back toward the couch and as she’s looking, feels his hand take hers. Looking back at him, words seem to jumble together, trying to find the right thing to say. “She’s a special little girl.” There’s a connection she can’t explain, one simply _there_ that grew with time.

“Do ye always give your patients so many gifts?” he asks quietly.

“Yes, I do,” Claire answers honestly.

“And do ye always hand deliver them this way to someone’s home?”

At that, she locks eyes with him and swallows softly, shaking her head. “No.”

For a moment neither of them speak but he squeezes her hand. “Don’t go, yet. Stay. Have a dram of whisky since ye’re no’ technically on duty. It’s the least I can do but it’s all I have to thank ye with.” And not much of a thanks because the whisky here is, well. He doesn’t know who _Jim Beam_ is, but he’s doing a disservice to the American public.

She should say no, should go, but finds herself nodding and following him toward the kitchen. She leans against the counter as he pours a glass for each of them, then holds hers out for a silent toast before sipping. As she looks around, she realizes there isn’t much to the space, not even a dining room table.

“We were no’ here often, and I’ve never been sure how long we’re staying. Besides, leaving Faith to go get furniture seemed unimportant.” He reads her mind, or more likely the way her eyes take in the small apartment.

“I think your priorities have been perfectly on point, Jamie,” Claire assures him. “She’s loved and taken care of, and she knows it. It’s all that matters right now.”

“Aye, true enough.” He goes quiet for a moment, fingers busily tapping against his leg before speaking again. “When she was born so early, I worried every day that she’d stop breathing or something would go wrong. I couldna leave her. And then she grew and thrived, but now, to see her so sick, I canna help but wonder if I did something, anything…”

Putting her glass down, Claire frowns. “What could you have possibly done, Jamie?”

There’s a long moment that passes as he gathers his thoughts, trying to decide if he should even say them aloud. He can’t go back now and steadies himself with a deep, fortifying breath. Confessing. “I put my grief on her small shoulders. I left it up to her to get me through the darkness I was wallowing in after Anna died. It was all on Faith to keep me waking up in the mornings and perhaps it was too much. I gave her such a heavy burden that it wore her out.”

The shocked silence that follows only lasts for as long as it takes Claire to blink back tears. “Jamie, no,” she says urgently, closing the distance between them and taking his glass to set aside before grabbing his hand between both of hers. “No. You didn’t do anything to make your little girl sick. Sometimes children are ill, and there’s no reason for it. You couldn’t have known or prevented it. It isn’t your fault. Do you hear me?”

He says nothing, staring at her shoulder instead of into her eyes.

“Jamie. Do you _hear_ me?”

Finally, his eyes drag back to hers and he gives a minute nod. There are tears, waiting to spill, and then there’s his sheer willpower keeping them in check. She knows he doesn’t want to do it, that he wants to stay stoic because he thinks he needs to now, but he doesn’t have to. Not with her. Reaching out, her arms tentatively wrap around his shoulders, tugging him to her. She feels the slight resistance at first and one hand goes to the middle of his back to rub lightly. “Faith being sick isn’t your fault, Jamie.”

He’s waited to hear those words for so long. He’s held a secret fear in his heart that Anna would blame him for it, for not being strong enough to be a good father to their daughter. Claire’s reassurance makes the dam burst and his fears, his exhaustion, his sheer anger over the situation comes pouring out of him. There’s a stop and start, as if he tries to hold back, but then there’s a crack in his breathing. He isn’t loud, but the tears fall freely as his arms crush Claire to him and he weeps. To hear that his strength hasn’t been too little too late makes him feel absolved of a sin he never committed.

“It’s alright,” Claire whispers, her fingers finding purchase in his curls, head turning in a bit against his neck. It would be easy, she thinks, to kiss him there, and she closes her eyes on the thought. “You’ve had to be everything for Faith all alone. It’s a lot to ask of one person.” Maybe that’s why she’s doing her damned best to make it easier for him.

Jamie feels good in her arms, feels safe and unashamed to be emotional but even so, he pulls back after a bit. “Thank ye, Claire. I’m...no’ usually so… _this_ way. But the past few days. Weeks, really...”

“I know. I should go so you can both rest. Home together and not in the hospital.” She smiles at him, squeezing his arm again and ignoring how cold she feels now that he’s stepped back and the warmth of him is gone. “I’ll see you both in two days for a checkup?”

He wants her to stay, wants her to come back to his arms, but instead, he nods, walking with a hand hovering over her lower back toward the front door. “Aye. We’ll see ye then. Though perhaps you could come for supper after? She’s been asking for chicken nuggets. I’ll be goin’ all out and makin’ them _star-shaped_. Ye dinna want to miss it.”

Claire laughs softly, resists the urge to reach out and wipe away any residual tears on his cheeks. “I’d like that. Can’t miss star-shaped chicken.” Opening the door, she steps through, looking back at him. “I’ll see you.” 

Jamie watches as she walks down the path, disappears around a corner, and listens for the sound of her car starting. Only then does he close the door, mentally reminding himself to get a damned kitchen table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The response to this fic has been nothing short of incredible. I never expected anyone to really like it; I thought taking the maternity away from Claire in regards to Faith and re-working it in a different way would be too blasphemous to the original characters for anyone to embrace. So the fact that people have responded this way is truly blowing my mind. It makes me so excited to post chapters. I'm incredibly flattered by all of you and the fact that some of my favorite authors are reaching out to me has caused more than a little flailing on my end. Thank you so much; I see and try to respond to every single nice word - even if I'm not good at knowing what to say. I appreciate each and every single person on AO3 and Tumblr who bothers with a comment or a reblog. Next chapter in a few days!


	5. August 2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire visits the Fraser's, and she comes with gifts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Try, try, try just a little bit harder_  
>  So I can love, love, love him, I tell myself  
> Well, I'm gonna try, just a little bit harder  
> So I can't give, give, give, give him to nobody else. 

It takes five weeks to know. Five weeks of trying not to dwell on test results and failing miserably. Five weeks of waking up in a cold sweat and needing to watch Faith breathe. Thirty-five days to know the stem cells took. No more treatments, the port in her chest removed. There’s remission for now, but Jamie decides they’re staying put for a while; he won’t leave it to a doctor back home to look for any signs of cancer when he already has the best right where they are. If something happens to Faith, she needs Claire. And so Jamie decides they’ll stay for a year, and after that, fly back annually for checkups as long as it takes.

For now, all Claire hears is that they’re staying. As he leaves the last check-up for a while with Faith, he mentions he’s getting more furniture so the next time she comes over for chicken nugget stars, it’ll be fancier. It makes her smile to know he wants her to visit again; he’s on her mind, always, somehow. She’s met other parents, other single fathers, even. But she’s never met someone like _Jamie_ before. Confident, playful, strong, with the ability to be incredibly sensitive. Now that he’s sleeping, now that there are more reasons to smile, she sees more of that, and she sees it in Faith, too. How easily she laughs, the way the dark circles under her eyes are slowly disappearing. These are people who’ve invited her into their lives beyond the doctoring, and she can’t stop thinking about them.

That may be why, as she shops for herself, she comes up with an idea of something Jamie should have in his home. Good music, on actual albums, not just on his phone. She narrows everything down in her shopping cart to just two things: An honest to God record player and a Janis Joplin album. A compilation. One with the song _Try_. It’s a good record; she stands by it and takes both gifts with her the next time she’s invited to dinner.

When Jamie lets her inside, the first thing she notices is that he’s shaved; he’s always had some sort of facial hair, but there’s less now, it’s neater and his curly hair is a bit shorter. He’s also in more than just jeans and a t-shirt. Well, he’s still in jeans, but they’re his actual size, they’re nicer, and the shirt is fitted. She can see, clearly, every muscle in his upper arms.

Christ, how did a bookseller get so _fit_?

“What’s all this?” he asks, moving to relieve her of her packages.

“A gift. For you. A housewarming gift, really,” she explains, stumbling a bit for God knows what reason. Thankfully, Faith is a good distraction, immediately wrapping herself around Claire for a hug. She’s still so slight that Claire lifts her easily and makes her way back to the couch, sitting with an exaggerated sigh, as if Faith weighs more. “You’re definitely eating all of the good food I told you to,” she praises.

Faith nods with a grin, then gestures toward the kitchen. “We made dinner and it’s _no’_ chicken nuggets this time.”

“It’s not?” Claire asks curiously. “What are we having that smells so delicious?”

“ _Pizza_! Our very own and now ye have to pick toppings to make yours.”

Claire lets herself be led by the hand toward the kitchen as she glances back at Jamie with a wide smile. Soon, her own pizza is being slid into an oven next to his while he pulls Faith’s out to cool. Letting the little girl lead the conversation mostly results in Claire being told tales filtered down through her father about Highland cows and all the animals of Lallybroch missing her. Glances are shared between Jamie and Claire; her silently hoping they decide to stay here in Boston for good, him wondering if one day he might be able to show her all the things Faith describes.

Once everyone’s pizza is ready ( _Claire’s toppings: cheese, green bell pepper, and pepperoni. Jamie’s: everything but the kitchen sink. Faith’s: Plain cheese._ ) they sit at the new dining room table, and now it’s Claire’s turn to talk when Faith begins asking her all sorts of questions. Where her favorite place ever to go is ( _The Museum of Fine Arts on a rainy day_ ), if she has any pets ( _no, she isn’t home enough and it wouldn’t be fair_ ) and whether or not she’s ever seen a double rainbow ( _very regrettably no_ ).

Jamie’s pleased at the mild interrogation, filing some information away and realizing she’s hard to stop looking at as she engages with his daughter. She’s open as a book, not holding anything back, which is why he leans over and whispers in Faith’s ear. The little girl beams and looks at Jamie, who nods, and then her grin is turned to Claire.

“Doctor Claire, what’s yer favorite breakfast?”

It’s such an innocent question from the mouth of five-year-old, and yet when Claire’s eyes meet Jamie’s she can just about feel the heat from her cheeks fill the room. Clearing her throat, her mouth opens, then closes. _What a clever bastard._

“Well. I don’t always sit down for a proper breakfast. Most of the time I eat yogurt or a piece of fruit...”

“How boring for ye,” Jamie interjects cooly, pretending to buff his nails on his jeans.

“... _But_ I like pancakes with syrup and bacon.”

“That’s good! I like my pancakes wi’ chocolate chips in them,” Faith informs her.

“Well, I’ll have to find someone who makes really good chocolate chip pancakes and hope they invite me to breakfast,” is the natural reply.

“Daddy can!”

“ _Mo bheannachd_ , I’m honored ye think my cooking is so good, but I have no’ made pancakes in a long while. They would be all funny shapes, I reckon. And now it’s time for ye to go change for bed. Go on,” he says, nodding toward her room. He does pull her close for a quick kiss to the forehead before she disappears down the hallway.

Clearing her throat, Claire stands as well. “I’ll help you clean up.”

“Hold on,” Jamie decides, getting up as well and walking toward the gift sitting on the coffee table. “I’m a wee bit curious.” Not waiting on her to give her blessing, Jamie opens the record player first, then the record and looks at it with a curious smile. “Janis Joplin?”

“Her voice was made to be listened to on vinyl. It’s a good record,” Claire defends, watching as Jamie begins to take the player out of the box.

“It’s only that I never thought of ye as the type, is all,” Jamie shrugs, plugging in the record player. “I thought of ye more as a…’slow jazz with a glass of wine’ sort.”

For a moment, Claire doesn’t say anything, and then she finds her voice. “You think of me?”

Now, it’s his turn to avoid looking at her, but the tips of his ears pink nicely. As he unwraps the record, he nods a little. “Aye. I do.”

Before they get much further than that, Faith comes back in, dressed in soft pink pajamas with Care Bears on them, pink slippers on her feet. “Can Doctor Claire tuck me in?”

It’s a small request, but one that feels like a high honor as Claire looks at Jamie, trying to be sure it’s alright if she says yes. 

“I think that’s up to Doctor Claire, _mo ghaol_.”

Two sets of eyes look at her now, one hoping, one curious, and she smiles softly, nodding. “Of course I can. I would be happy to.” Reaching out, Faith’s hand curls into hers and Claire’s heart feels like it very well might burst. Children trust her to make them well, parents put all of their hope into her, but the innocence of this, that even outside of the hospital Faith trusts Claire, means something else on perhaps a different scale. It’s bigger than medicine and healing, whatever it is. She can’t quite name it. In Faith’s room, she helps her to bed and there’s Trunky, waiting to be received, and Claire tucks him in right beside her.

“Goodnight, Doctor Claire,” Faith says with a small grin, snuggling under her sheets and blanket.

“Sweet dreams, Faith,” she murmurs, reaching out to stroke her forearm softly. It’s different, watching her drift off, comfortable in her own bed, warm, taken care of. Claire never gets to see this part, the _after_ , and it takes her breath away. When she seems to be at least dozing lightly, Claire rises and makes her way into the living room as the first strains of _Little Girl Blue_ filter from the record player. She knows the song, knows it as something a bit melancholy. But she watches Jamie, standing there and listening to the sultry, scratchy voice of Janis Joplin sing about being unhappy. As soon as he’s aware of her, Jamie looks up, then extends his hand.

She’s drawn to him without more prompting and takes his offer. Before she can register it, she’s dancing with him in a slow sway to words about raindrops and sadness. It’s a slow dance, one where they barely move, but she’s very aware of him, the smell of his aftershave and soap where her head rests on his shoulder. Eventually, the song fades into another, but for a long while, they don’t move until she realizes they’re standing completely still, arms wrapped around one another. Raising her head, she looks up just as his head dips and his lips graze hers. It’s a soft kiss, but one she feels blossom deep in her belly. She lets herself get lost in the way she feels right now, in how _he_ feels, the way her body naturally curves to his and there’s no question about how they fit together. Without thinking much about it, Claire’s lips part, inviting him to kiss her deeper, until she realizes what she’s doing.

Kissing a patient’s father.

Breaking the moment by ducking her head, she takes a few deep breaths and lets them out softly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t, it’s… it could be seen as unethical because I’m treating your daughter.”

Immediately, Jamie lets her go, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “I dinna… I dinna want to make ye uncomfortable.”

“It isn’t that, Jamie, it’s not. With Faith as my patient, it just. It clouds things. My judgment,” she explains, and it isn’t a total lie. Though she’s already so attached to that little girl, kissing her father likely doesn’t matter much as far as judgment goes. Still, Claire clears her throat. “I should go.”

Reaching out, Jamie stops the record and nods. “Thank ye. For the gift. I suppose I’ll need to go buy more records,” he says with a gentle smile, trying to ease her, trying to keep her from thinking it’s too awkward now for her to ever return. It’s not the first time in his life he’s been turned down, but it is the first time he’s left feeling dizzy by everything he just felt but can’t have.

“There’s a great place about a mile from here. Huge selection. Something better than old Janis Joplin songs, maybe,” Claire explains as she walks toward the door, semi-apologizing for her selection.

“Something _better_? I think I have a new favorite song,” he decides.

One he can listen to and remember the way she felt as she pressed close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I highly suggest listening to both songs mentioned. Especially _Little Girl Blue_. Go ahead and set the mood, then read the last few paragraphs again ;)


	6. September 2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rating of this fic is changing to 'teen and up' with this chapter ;)

Three weeks go by before Claire has the nerve to reach out to Jamie, to talk to him outside of the recent appointment Faith had. It was during that appointment she realized there was a fair amount of peach fuzz growing on the little girl’s head, red curls determined to begin growing again. That’s the reason she’s texting Jamie now.

_I found a few bows I thought Faith might like. Mind if I bring them to you?_

_Come by. Stay for supper?_

The invitation causes her to exhale for what feels like the first time since the night he kissed her. Since she’d kissed him back, then pulled away. Every thought in her idle time has been about him, about his kiss. The way she could sink against his chest and feel his arms wrap around her tightly. God, the way the warmth of his tongue felt against her bottom lip and the gentle suck as she’d pulled away. She wants to kiss him again, wants to feel his lips other places and explore him just as thoroughly, but she can’t. Ethics and the real possibility of losing her job both hang over her head. More than that, she doesn’t want to risk losing Faith as a patient. They’ve come so far, all of them, together. She needs to see it through.

That night, gift bag full of bows in hand, Claire knocks on the apartment door. Two things greet her as soon as it opens: Jamie Fraser with no shirt on, and Faith laughing so hard she has the hiccups. There’s nowhere to look but at his chest and a bit lower, taking in his abs before belatedly raising her gaze to his. That’s when she realizes the ends of his hair are dripping something lavender colored and she looks at him in confusion. “Catch you at a bad time?”

“Da forgetted the _blender lid_!” Faith crows, laughing again as Claire’s face relaxes into amused understanding.

“Here I thought you were a _professional_ ,” Claire teases as Jamie steps aside to let her in.

“Weel, apparently smoothies are beyond my skill level,” Jamie says, trying to be good-natured about the fact that there’s blended milk and berries all over the kitchen. The ruined shirt is still clutched in his hand and he holds it up a bit. “Better wash it so it doesna stain.” Turning to do just that, his step seems to falter as he turns his back before walking away from her.

That’s when she sees the scars. A map of them so deep that in less than a heartbeat, she knows the wounds likely should have killed him. Swallowing hard, Claire blinks quickly and then makes her way to Faith, forcing a smile so they can discuss bows and hair accessories. It turns into a fashion show while Jamie cleans up the kitchen and finishes supper. They all eat their fill of tacos, something easy enough, before Faith disappears to draw a picture for Claire.

Helping with the dishes, Claire dries as Jamie washes, now in a stain-free shirt and just as quiet as she is.

“Ye’re curious about it. My back,” he finally says, glancing over at her.

“I am. But it’s none of my business.”

Jamie turns to her fully, casually crossing his arms over his chest. “Ye can ask, Sassenach.”

Claire’s mouth opens and closes. “Did you just call me...what did you just call me?”

A twitch of a smile lifts the corner of his lips. “‘Sassenach.’ It only means you’re no’ from Scotland. The word came up in a book I brought from home and Faith asked me what it was. When I told her, she used ye as an example in a sentence. ‘Doctor Claire is a Sassenach.’ So. Canna argue wi’ the lass.”

There’s an exhale through her nose, a huff of laughter as she looks at him in amusement. “Charming.” Her smile fades, head tilting a bit as she looks at him. “What happened, Jamie?”

Turning back to wash the dishes, he tells the tale: He was in the passenger seat of his brother-in-law’s vehicle. Jamie, for only a moment, had removed his seatbelt to turn and get something out of the backseat. “I canna even remember what it was,” he admits. “It was as I turned back around, a truck behind us wi’ no headlights slammed into the back of the car. I’d yet to put my seatbelt back on and I was halfway out of the seat anyway, so I went directly through the windshield. The next time I opened my eyes I was in a hospital.” He hands over a plate to Claire. “Annalise was in a car going the opposite direction. She saw it happen, called emergency services, and visited the hospital every day. It’s how we met.”

Claire’s eyes are wide, shocked at the severity of the accident, but at least the story has a happy enough ending. “And your brother-in-law?” she finds herself asking, invested.

“Fine. He was alright other than some bruises.”

“Christ, Jamie. That’s...I’m a bit humbled you felt you could tell me.”

“Now that ye’ve seen it, I didna want to leave ye wondering, is all.” The next time their hands touch, his eyes linger on her face. “Now ye ken something about me most people don’t.”

Claire’s mouth goes just the slightest bit dry at his words and she realizes she likes it. She likes knowing something about him that he doesn’t share with the world at large and it leaves her scrambling to find something she can share, something just as worthy as what he shared with her. On the spot she can’t think of anything, so she goes with the one thing she can get her body to do.

It’s the only explanation for why she’s kissing him, one of his hands holding a plate tightly while her own press to either side of his face. There’s nothing timid about the kiss, neither of them hold back much, but then Faith calls out and Claire pulls away from him abruptly. Turning back to the counter, she clears her throat as Faith walks in and proudly shows off what she drew. Immediately, Claire focuses on the picture and praises it, declaring she’ll hang it up at home. Jamie excuses himself to help his daughter in the bath and Claire uses the time to try and think of a suitable apology. She’s the one who told him no last time. She’d put a stop to it and now here she is, making out with him in his kitchen.

_Get it together, Beauchamp._

He’s gone for a while and she realizes he must be tucking Faith in, seeing her off to sleep. Claire finds herself cleaning the entire kitchen, needing something to occupy herself until he returns. It feels like hours pass before she hears him behind her and she turns, watching him watch her from only a breath away. He’s there, right _there_ , looking at her as though unsure what to do next. She shouldn’t. She knows the possible consequences.

“I shouldn’t…” Her voiced thought process sounds weak to her own ears.

“But ye want to,” he says quietly.

“I do.” It’s a soft confession, one that barely exists between them before he closes the distance and crushes his lips to hers as desperately as a dying man. This time, his hands move through her hair and she doesn’t push away, doesn’t try to rationalize the moment. Slowly, carefully, she realizes Jamie is walking forward so that she’s going backward toward the couch. Eventually, he turns their bodies so he can sit, tugging her right into his lap. 

_It’s not too late to stop_ , she thinks, but that goes out of the window as soon as his lips are against hers again, tongue gliding over the contours of her mouth. She makes a soft sound in the back of her throat before finally taking her turn to explore and taste.

Jamie’s hands move down her sides and come to rest against her lower back so he feels it in his fingertips first, the very slight, subtle rock of her hips.

Oh, Christ.

He takes it as an invitation and pushes his hips forward, meeting that small movement. His gaze stays on her face, watching to be sure it’s alright, and when her eyes flutter closed and her lips part, he thinks he might lose control of all his faculties right there. She rocks back, with intent again, and soon they have a slow, grinding rhythm as their mouths continue to meet. Tongues clash, then relax as they take turns tasting, exploring. Slowly, his hands find their way under her shirt and rest at the skin of her back. He feels her sigh and there’s a slow, upward roll of his hips that makes him groan right into her mouth.

The friction she’s trying to create is off center by just enough that ripples of pleasure tickle up and down her spine, his groan encouraging her _just enough_ that she shifts and then, incredibly, it’s as though everything aligns. The next time she rolls forward the hard bulge of him presses exactly, _precisely_ where she needs it and a choked, surprised moan makes its way from her throat and against his lips. In response, she feels his hands press into her skin, realizes he’s moving her. Dropping her head to his shoulder, her fingers clutch at his shirt, twisting it in her fingers. “Christ, Jamie…”

She hears her phone. Somewhere on the edge of peaking pleasure, she hears it, but he doesn’t let her go and she can’t figure out how to make words work as he grips her closer, rocking into her. “ _Jamie_.” Her phone rings again and she needs to get it, she needs to move, but she needs _this_ , moving her own hips shamelessly now, harder, faster. She can feel him watching her, feel his hot breath falling against her cheek and the next time she manages his name it’s on a muffled gasp as she finds her release against him. Still clothed, still in his lap, she comes in his arms and can’t move, can’t figure out a way to regulate her breathing. He’s still hard, she can feel him, pressing, but before her hand can find its way beneath the waistband of his pants her phone rings a third time and she can’t ignore it. Scrambling off of his lap she digs into her purse and answers, breathless. The conversation is short, a promise to ‘be there in ten minutes.’

By the time she hangs up, Jamie’s standing so that the temptation to slide into his lap again is gone.

“I have to…”

“Go, I ken,” Jamie says with a warm smile, stepping forward, toward her.

“I’m sorry. For having to leave _right_ now. It isn’t fair.”

He hushes her by dropping a kiss to her lips, a soft one. “I also ken we should no’ be doing this.”

“I don’t think I can resist you, Jamie Fraser,” she finds herself admitting, unsure what to do with such a confession.

“I will no’ tell the ethics committee if you won’t,” he offers, guiding her to the door, trying not to distract her from her job.

With one more kiss and a slight fear of her own words, she looks up at him.

“We’ll be careful.”

She has no idea what she’s doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're now in the fall, so it was time for a mood board change which you can check out on tumblr! As always, thank you so much to @smashingteacups!


	7. October 2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halloween for wee Faith, her father, and Doctor Claire.

Halloween comes with so much fanfare that Jamie isn’t quite sure where to start. This is the first year Faith truly understands (and feels well enough) to dress up. They spend hours all month looking at costumes, floating ideas and thoughts between them. She considers a superhero of some sort but dismisses those as, collectively, not being _cute_. Whatever that could possibly mean. Then she thinks she could be a doctor, like Claire, but at the last minute is too shy to even imagine it. They go through every Disney princess, different occupations, and finally, at the end of it, she decides on a simple black cat.

Because of the cat ear headband, of all things. Jamie doesn’t understand what goes through a young girl’s mind and he isn’t about to begin questioning it now. They order a costume, and on Halloween he helps her dress; it’s not much more than a black leotard, a black belt with a tail on the backside, and the cat ears, but then there’s the face paint. She’s so excited that he’s surprised when she sits still enough for the pink nose and whiskers. When there’s a knock at the door, she moves faster than he’s seen her go in months, and he lets her answer as he walks behind her.

“Doctor Claire!”

Hugs are received first from Faith before the little girl pulls back, narrowing her eyes. “Where’s yer costume?” she asks curiously.

“I didn’t have time to get one,” Claire explains. “But I don’t think anyone at the hospital will mind.”

She’s invited Faith and Jamie to the trick-or-treat event at the Children’s Hospital, a place Jamie is familiar, a place where Faith will still know some of the children from her own stay.

“No, ye need a costume, Doctor Claire. Daddy already doesna have one.”

Jamie smirks. “I told ye, I’m a Scot for Halloween. Most people here have never seen one.”

Claire bites at her bottom lip, trying not to laugh at both his lack of wanting to dress up and Faith’s exasperation at the adults.

“Ye have to have a costume,” Faith insists, then reaches for her own cat ears and hands them up to Claire. “Daddy can paint your face and ye can be a cat!”

Kneeling, Claire stays at Faith’s eye-level for a moment. “I don’t want to take the cat ears you were so excited to have. What if...your dad paints my face? People will still know I’m a cat with whiskers and a pink nose, won’t they?”

Faith seems to consider this, then nods, putting her ears back on with a grin. “Okay.”

Jamie shakes his head, swallowing back a smile as he watches Faith disappear to put on her shoes. “Guess ye get to be my next victim. I’m no’ great with the face painting bit.”

Claire smirks and sits on the couch. “Oh, I imagine. Drawing curvy black lines must be quite difficult,” she teases. She’s rewarded with a kiss to the tip of her nose before he begins painting it.

“She’s been so excited about this, she’ll be talking about it forever. But it’s nice,” he says, meeting Claire’s gaze. “To see her so happy.”

The smile Claire gives Jamie is so full of warmth and hope. His daughter’s next appointment isn’t for a few weeks yet, but she’s confident that this – the happiness and chance for Faith to just be a happy little girl – won’t go anywhere. “She is certainly insistent about us conforming to all Halloween protocol,” she murmurs as Jamie paints.

“Aye, and I’ve greatly disappointed her by no’ dressing up. I didn’t have it in me to be something I’m not right now,” he admits, painting black lines across Claire’s cheeks.

“You haven’t been _you_ in a long time, Jamie.” He’s been a new husband, a widower, father of a sick child. “She doesn’t understand that right now, but one day she will. And one missed Halloween won’t matter. I promise.”

For that, she gets a soft kiss once the face painting is done. “I do believe ye are now, officially, a cat.”

Before he can move too far, Claire meets his lips again, closing her eyes and letting herself give in to it for a brief moment. This is still new, every kiss still holds the promise of the next, and she smiles softly when she pulls back. “I think you found a new calling, truly,” she advises, not even bothering to look in a mirror. Faith returns, shoes on and successfully tied, and then they go, taking Jamie’s leased vehicle rather than try to get a booster seat into Claire’s. 

Walking inside, Faith is secure in Jamie’s arms as she points out all of the decorations, excited to see some of the nurses and waving at them before joining the other kids who are well enough to have dressed up. They ‘trick-or-treat,’ receiving treats from staff and volunteers before making a few very simple crafty things. Claire’s careful not to spend too much time lingering with Jamie and Faith, somewhat paranoid about creating a conversation with her peers she’s not willing to have just yet. Still, from where she is her gaze falls on them often and more than once it’s as though he knows she’s watching because his head turns, eyes lingering on her before turning his attention back to the flurry of activity.

Goodies obtained and time of her life had, Faith has just about fallen asleep when Claire insists they go home without her, that she’ll be fine. They arrived together; no need to push their luck by leaving together. She stays after they’re gone to help with the cleanup and that’s when she sees them: the infamous cat ears. They must have come off, and as Claire picks them up and considers the hard plastic, she isn’t surprised; after a while, even she would have been annoyed at the feel of that behind her ears. She should return them, she realizes, checking her watch. It’s late enough that Faith should be sleeping, early enough that Jamie will likely still be awake. She needs to get her car anyway and feels slightly bad about the two minute Uber ride she takes to the apartment complex. A ride she’s only taking now because it’s so dark, even if she wishes she had the time to walk and think. She could transfer Faith’s case to a different doctor, one Claire trusts, but she knows even with a glowing recommendation, Jamie will be opposed. She wonders, can’t help it, what happens when he does go back to Scotland. Is this – whatever it is – for the next few months only?

There isn’t enough time to dwell on it, ride over too soon. Holding the cat ears in her hand, Claire makes her way to his apartment and knocks softly. As soon as the door opens, she smiles at him and holds up the headband. “Found something.”

“Christ, she nearly had a meltdown like it was the end of the world,” Jamie says, letting Claire in and closing the door. “She’ll be thanking ye for that one,” he tells her with a fond smile as he leads her to the living room and drops the accessory to the coffee table. “Ye make a verra bonny cat, by the way.”

Claire’s followed him further inside and at his words, blushes just a little. “Oh, do I? That’s only because of someone’s very handy brushwork.” She finds her way closer to him until she can reach out and rest her hands at his hips.

He reciprocates in kind. “I should show ye how grateful I am,” he murmurs, ducking his head close to hers. “I did no’ have a reward in mind, but hopefully this is compensation enough for going out of yer way.” There’s a beat where he hovers, his breath touching her lips before kissing her. It’s soft, tender, until he feels her respond. Then, his tongue does glide over hers, wrapping his arms fully around her now.

She really could melt into him, could very happily continue kissing him just like this for the rest of her life. There are so many unknowns, but she can’t bring herself to ask them. The last year has been an unknown to him, and this, for better or worse, he can control. Whatever life he decides he wants, be it here or in Scotland, she can’t dictate it or try to sway him. It wouldn’t be fair to him or to Faith. So, she’ll take this, as long as she can have it.

When he pulls back, it’s only to press his forehead to hers. “Do ye ever feel guilty?” he asks quietly, pressing his left hand to hers, both wedding bands clinking together just softly.

It’s a question she isn’t expecting, but realizes it, too, has been on her mind, right below the surface. Closing her eyes, her fingers lace with his as her head turns so that she can nuzzle and press her cheek to the stubble there, a pleasant scratch against her skin. “I did,” she admits. “Until I thought about what Frank would have wanted. Never would he have wanted me to be sad about finding happiness.”

“Most days I feel the same way.”

“Most?”

She pulls back just enough to look at him, eyes moving over his face.

“I dream about her sometimes. Even now.”

He sounds, for some reason, ashamed of it, and she reaches out, stroking his cheek. “Jamie, she was your wife,” Claire says quietly, gently. “Every now and then, I think I see Frank walking down the street and I have to remind myself,” she says, clearing her throat. “You’ll always think of her. That’s nothing to feel guilty over, at least not with me.”

Jamie closes his eyes, forehead finding purchase against hers once more. “Ye’ve been a comfort, Claire. But I have no’ felt like _this_ in a verra long time,” he confesses, holding onto her now, tighter.

“Neither have I,” she whispers, a tear sliding down her cheek. “With you, it doesn't frighten me.” It should, for a dozen different reasons, but instead of acknowledging anything working against her or them, she just kisses him again, arms winding around his neck.

It’s easy with Jamie, and maybe that’s what she fears the most.


	8. November 2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanksgiving, and something that changes everything.

Thanksgiving, as cobbled together by two non-Americans, turns out not that badly. It wouldn’t have happened at all if Faith hadn’t been captivated by commercials on television, but the ads for the Macy’s Parade clenched it. For as passionate as she’d been about Halloween, she’s just as enthusiastic about Thanksgiving. Together, father and daughter looked up traditional foods and they _needed_ to have turkey, that was a given they decided together. Jamie let her pick whatever else she wanted and by the time he was done writing a list ( _dressing, not stuffing, because stuffing in the bird was too weird, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie_ ), he’d realized it was too much food. He ordered everything because he couldn’t cook it all in the small apartment but nevertheless, it was too much food.

Naturally, he’d had to call Claire and invite her to dinner.

The night before, Faith couldn’t sleep at all. They’d picked up the food and he was right - it was more food than he’d even imagined. She’d said plenty of times that there was enough for everyone back home and for a while they talked about when they _could_ go home again. He’s glad she wants to be back at Lallybroch, but hates not knowing what it would do to him and Claire. He likes her; more than likes her, really. It’s something he didn’t consider for himself again, and with Faith being sick, he hadn’t thought there was room for any feelings other than fear, sadness, and guilt. 

It changed one day while she was adjusting an IV. Jamie stepped out of the room, just to give Jenny a small update over the phone and when he looked back in through the window, he’d watched Claire. Watched the way she laughed freely with Faith, the tender kiss she’d placed to the side of her head while hugging her. He watched the way Faith brightened to see Claire and something shifted in him. Claire Randall didn’t just care. She truly loved these children, and he knew then that someone this giving deserved to be loved and cared for in return.

Of course, he had no idea then if he was the right person for it. He still doesn’t know and he might not be, but he’s decided to do his best, while he can.

The promise of a parade and seeing Santa Claus has been too much for Faith to bear, so they’re up early, coffee brewing for Jamie as he gets her settled on the couch with the parade on. He smiles at every exclamation ( _It’s Sesame Street! Da, look, a Dora balloon!_ ) as he sits on the couch beside her and watches. He watches her face, the way she bobs her head along to a few songs she may or may not know. It’s less interesting the fewer bits she understands or recognizes, and after not sleeping at all the night before, she falls asleep during a Broadway performance ( _School of Rock_ ). Jamie lets her sleep until the very end, then gently wakes her so she can see Santa. It makes her so happy, something so small, and he answers all of her questions the best he can about how Santa will find them all the way in America. ( _He already sent Santa an email about it, so it’s fine, he promises._ )

Shortly after the parade ends and some sort of dog show begins, Claire arrives, arms loaded with more food that has Jamie eying her as he relieves her of the load. “Did ye no’ hear me when I said we have enough here to feed an army?” he asks with a barely suppressed smirk.

“I heard you, but this is my first time to really celebrate an American Thanksgiving, too. I heard rumors of sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top and that’s too odd sounding not to try. And I thought we might as well have a pecan pie. Tradition, Jamie,” she says with a faux ‘tsk.’

After he helps her put things down in the kitchen, his lips press to her forehead, then her lips.

“Where’s my little greeter?” Claire asks, only realizing now that there was no shout of happiness to see her.

“Oh, asleep. She didna sleep much last night, then woke up earlier than the Almighty Himself to see the parade.” It hadn’t even started yet, but what could he possibly deny that little girl? “Which means I have ye all to myself for now,” Jamie murmurs before kissing her again with his hands at her hips. His tongue seeks permission to taste, and when her lips part there’s a low groan of approval into her mouth. Slowly, he presses her against the fridge, one hand wandering up and down her side now before slipping under her shirt.

“Feeling me up in your kitchen?” Claire asks with a grin against his mouth.

“Too much?”

There’s a laugh now as she kisses him again, pulling back briefly. “No, not at all. Very romantic. Just you and me and the turkey.”

He laughs into their next kiss and his hand resumes its travel, fingers lightly ghosting over her stomach before cupping her breast, dragging his thumb across a nipple even through the fabric. He can feel her shiver and in a way, it isn’t fair. They certainly aren’t going to do much more than this with Faith asleep on the couch, and Jamie raises his head to look at Claire and the way her cheeks have flushed with want. “We should…” He swallows, drawing his hand away and holding onto her over her clothes now.

“Right,” she breathes out, hands relaxing from the way they’d been gripping the back of his shirt.

There’s an offer for her to stay overnight on the tip of his tongue, but it’s been such a long time, for both of them, and he isn’t sure he’s ready. _Parts_ of him certainly are, but taking her to his bed and making her fall apart with their clothes still on are two very different things. With the lack of invitation comes something else; one thigh between her legs as he kisses her again and drinks her moan. He relishes the feel of her hands back at his shirt, tugging downward desperately.

“ _Jamie_...”

“I changed my mind. Christ, I want to see ye fall apart again,” he breathes out, encouraging her to use him, to use the friction. When she begins to grind against him shamelessly he groans and a hand moves back under her shirt as his lips press to the side of her neck in heated open-mouthed kisses.

There’s just enough pressure that she has to rock with no restraint as she concentrates on the sparks of pleasure that blossom low in her belly. She can feel it when she has the perfect spot, but it isn’t enough friction. It’s maddening, so before she can think about it, really, she gasps out one simple two-word command. “Touch me.”

Jamie’s head rears back almost comically fast as he looks at her, trying to be sure of what she said. Her eyes open slowly, and God the arousal has blown them wide; he knows by looking at her that he heard correctly. With her permission, his hand carefully moves to the button of her jeans, the zipper, working them both enough that he can slip his hand beneath the denim and fabric of her underwear. The moment his fingers touch her flesh he grunts, low in the back of his throat, to feel how wet she is.

Her reaction is slightly more, body jolting as if kissed by lightning. She’s not quiet by nature but she’s trying, pressing her lips together tightly while he touches and she jerks into his hand, fingers finally circling and stroking exactly where she needs him. “There, right there,” she gasps, holding onto him, pressing her face to his neck. He moves faster and the pleasure turns from simmering to explosive in a matter of seconds as she comes apart, letting out a sob of relief that’s muffled by his neck.

After a solid minute goes by, Jamie moves his hand, softly kissing her lips now. “That’s what I wanted to see,” he murmurs, turning his head to let his nose nuzzle against the side of hers.

Once she can breathe again, Claire takes a deep breath and pulls back, looking at him and exhaling contently. “How did I know you’d be good with your hands?”

The resulting laugh is a little too loud and it rouses Faith, but it doesn’t matter now. While Jamie cools off in the kitchen, Claire goes to join the other part of her company on the couch, happily wrapping her up. Not long after, the three of them sit to eat together, trying the new foods, deciding that cranberry sauce is delicious mixed into the dressing, the burnt marshmallows are terrible, and pie is really all that matters. They eat enough to put themselves into food comas in the living room afterward. Jamie lays along the couch with Faith spread on top of him, and Claire curls up in a recliner, fully reclined and asleep in the chair about ten minutes into something animated bouncing on the screen.

Friday, while the rest of the world shops, Claire goes back to work after promising Faith she’ll see her on Monday for her checkup. For Jamie and his daughter, it’s a lazy day spent watching movies. She doesn’t stay awake for most of them and he’s content to hold her, fingers idly playing with the little curls on top of her head while he watches _Moana_ alone.

Sometime in the night, during the still-inky blackness of a Sunday morning, a soft whimpering of his name finally rouses Jamie from sleep. Listening in the dark for a few minutes, he finally hears it again, Faith calling out for him. Out of bed and tugging a shirt on, he goes to her room where he can hear her, crying, whimpering. “ _Mo leannan_ ,” he murmurs with a frown, sitting and reaching for her and immediately waking fully at the touch. “Christ, ye have a fever,” he says, feeling her now, realizing how hot she is.

“Daddy, I dinna feel good.”

He tries to quell the panic, the feel of his stomach rising up to his throat. “Where does it hurt, Faith?”

After a few moments of her quietly contemplating, thinking and sniffling, she looks up at him with wide blue eyes. “Everywhere.”

He begs her to be more specific, and then he’s on the phone out in the living room, calling Claire in a panic. There’s no time to register the groggy sound of her voice. “She has a fever, Claire. She woke and said she’s in pain.” Jamie pauses, choking on his fear for a few precious seconds. “She said her bones hurt her.”

Claire’s fully awake at that, sitting up in bed. “Get her to the hospital. Now. I’ll be there as fast as I can. Take her, Jamie.” She doesn’t bother with reassurances to ease his panic. They both know, they know rates and statistics; her because she has to, him because of sleepless nights researching. There’s a second, though, a heartbeat of silence they can both feel, a shared twist of their hearts before she hangs up and throws on a pair of scrubs. Everything about this is urgent to her, personal. She knows a line has blurred, but if she stops to refocus now, she won’t be able to do her job.

When she arrives she nearly jogs into the ER, upset to see that Jamie’s still in triage with Faith, knowing it’s protocol until a doctor decides to admit. She takes it upon herself to do so but before beginning all the tests, before finding out something concrete, her hands take Jamie’s, looking right at him and holding on tightly. She says nothing, he says nothing. Whatever comes next, she’s there.

It takes eighty minutes from the time they have the MRI done to Claire viewing the results on a computer monitor. Looking at them, she simply closes the tab and takes a breath, steadying herself. She’s done this before. She has to do it now and she’ll have to do it again in the future, most likely. Her own dam can’t break. It has to be locked down for her to make it through this part. But as soon as she walks into Faith’s room, as soon as Jamie looks at her, she knows that _he knows_. When he joins her in the hallway, one of her hands reaches out to rest on his shoulder. She wants to vomit and would rather do that than say the words. But she has to tell him.

“It’s back, Jamie. It’s spread.” Too far.

He knows without her having to say more; if there was something to be done for it he knows she’d look the way she did the first day they met: ready to fight, ready to give the cancer hell. He doesn’t ask where it’s spread to. Maybe he should. Does it matter?

“How--how long?” He can’t look up, can’t meet her gaze, and instead stares at the floor.

“A few months.”

“A number, Claire. Give me…”

“Two. Maybe three good months, Jamie.” 

Those words are the knife to his heart and he leans over, hands on his knees as a sob tears through him. Claire’s arms go around his body and somehow they wind up right there on the floor, his forehead pressed to her shoulder. She’s been here, she’s held parents, it’s nothing the nurses haven’t seen before, but it’s different for Claire. One hand makes its way to the back of his head, rocking while he weeps against her. She whispers that she’s sorry, feels her heart twist in her chest because she promised to do the best she could. Had she? Did she think of everything or did she fail Faith because she wasn’t good enough?

When he’s quiet, Claire rubs his back and then carefully stands, helping him up. “I’ll sit with her if you need to--”

“No. No, I have her,” he tells her, voice broken. Without saying anything else or acknowledging Claire further, he walks back into the room and leaves her standing alone in the empty hallway. Blindly, she walks to the bathroom and locks the door, pressing her back against it. Before a cry can choke its way out of her she covers her mouth and squeezes her eyes shut tightly. On Thursday, she watched a sweet little girl eat her way through an American tradition.

Now, she’s going to die.

Slowly, Claire sinks to the floor, crouching as she buries her face in her hands and sobs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot I'd like to say, but I think based on all of the comments that have come before this chapter, I'll merely say if you stop now, I would understand. But there's still so much to go, and this story is a journey.


	9. December 2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas.

They know, or at least Claire and Jamie know, that Faith won’t be going home, and the day Claire told Jamie is seared into her memory and etched into her soul forever. She knows on a logical level that it isn’t her fault, that she’s done everything she can for his little girl, but to say words that gut him so badly is crushing. She feels as though she might as well have stuck a knife in his heart herself. It’s her job, it’s been her job for nearly a decade now, and it never gets easier to go down this final, sad path when she must. But this is different, this is personal, and she can’t tell anyone, can’t express it, can’t be caught weeping, because _she_ crossed a line and fell in love with Jamie and his daughter.

She has to do what she would for any single one of her patients and their families, which means she has to be strong within the walls of the hospital. Professional. With Christmas so close, and considering Faith’s concern over Thanksgiving about Santa finding her, Claire decides to make sure there’s no doubt in her mind that she hasn’t been forgotten, even though she’s stuck in a bed far from her own. Claire’s promise to Jamie, that she would do everything she could for his daughter, is still ongoing; it just means something different now.

On the night before Christmas Eve, Claire somehow, against all odds, gets one of the busy radiologists to dress up as Santa with a large sack of toys over his shoulder. Making sure Faith is awake, Claire steps aside and lets ‘Santa’ in to charm and delight her. It’s worth it; the bright but sleepy smile on her face, her questions about all of her cousins getting toys all the way in Scotland answered patiently. When he asks Faith what she wants for Christmas, she thinks for a few seconds quietly, then shakes her head.

“Nothing, Santa.”

Of course, he asks if she’s sure, asks if there isn’t anything she wants, and again she refuses. She does get a hug and presents anyway ( _books, a doll, an assortment of Disney movies she can watch in her room_ ) before ‘Santa’ leaves to go visit the other children on the floor.

“ _A leannan_ , ye dinna want anything at all on Christmas Day?”

“I want to go home, Da,” she says quietly, looking down at the doll in her hands and putting it aside. She reaches for Trunky instead and holds the stuffed elephant to her chest. “To Lallybroch.”

Claire looks down from where she’s standing, unable to meet Jamie’s eyes, feeling the guilt of not fixing Faith churning in her belly so hard she’s afraid she might vomit. Excusing herself, she leaves the room and simply stands on the other side of the closed door, a hand over her mouth as she tries not to break down into tears among the cheery _ho ho ho’s_ she can hear echoing in the hall.

When Christmas arrives two days later, Claire brings two wrapped gifts. One is flat and wide, the other a smaller box. She can see it on Jamie’s face when she walks in, the relief to see her, but she doesn’t feel as though it’s deserved. He should be angry at her, the last person he wants to see in the hospital. Still, she plasters on a small smile mostly for Faith’s benefit. Kissing her forehead, she’s not there as ‘Doctor Claire.’ She’s simply there, trying to make the holiday the best it possibly can be. She’s brought a tin of Christmas cookies, the only thing she’s truly good at baking and decorating ( _God help her if she tries to make a cake_ ), and lets Faith pick whatever she wants, which then turns into her picking a cookie for Jamie and Claire each. The smaller gift is placed aside, and after the cookies are finished, the larger one lays across Faith’s lap. Despite her insistence of wanting nothing, the grin on her face betrays the fact that she’s delighted. Any child would be, and it’s incredible to simply watch her open the present with eagerness. It’s a large sticker book; the stickers able to be removed and placed in any sort of background or scene. Dinosaurs can float in space, a girl on a bicycle can ride through a jungle. Faith may be stuck in bed, but Claire knows her imagination is sharp.

Showing her how to use it, that the plastic stickers simply come right off of the glossy pages to be reused, she sits back and finally meets Jamie’s gaze, smiling just a little. It isn’t more than an hour later that Faith is dozing off even as she struggles to keep playing. Eventually, her head bobs to the side and Jamie lays her back, moving the sticker book and tucking her in. When he sits, he looks over at the other gift. “Ye didna want her opening that one?”

Claire almost startles, so lost in her own thoughts in the quiet that his voice pulls her out of the dark. Glancing over at the gift, she picks it up. “No. It’s for you.” Standing, she relocates herself beside him, handing the gift over. “I thought it might save you some bleeding.”

Curious, Jamie opens it only to find a nice razor, refill cartridges, and expensive looking soap. Raising the bar to smell ( _spicy; patchouli, the slightest hint of cinnamon, a touch of tarragon_ ) he hums appreciatively. “The disposable razors do a number on my face, ye ken?”

Smiling just a little, Claire nods. “I do know. I figured this might help.” Because he hasn't gone home once. The furthest he’s gone is down to the cafeteria, but even then, he’s back in record time and she can’t even be sure he’s actually eating anything substantial.

“Could I ask for another part to the gift, Sassenach?” he asks, pulling the razor out of the kit.

In confusion, she looks at him with a slight tilt of her head. “What?”

For a moment Jamie says nothing, just holding her gaze, looking for all the world like he’s going to say something other than what comes out of his mouth. “Would ye give me a shave?”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

“Of course, Jamie. I can do that for you.” Because it’s one of the only useful things she’ll feel like she’s done for him in weeks. Standing, she reaches out for his hand and leads him to the bathroom. 

Tugging off his shirt, he takes a moment to splash his face with water to get it damp before sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. He watches her move, watches her take the bar of soap between her hands and lather up before standing between his legs and looking down at him, hands hovering. “It’s alright, Sassenach. I’m ready.”

Letting out a breath, Claire smiles just a little and begins working the soap over his skin until she’s satisfied. Wetting the razor now, she murmurs. “Hold still and don’t speak.” Once she knows he won’t move her hands begin sure work, trying to remember the way her husband taught her once before he died. She’s so close to Jamie, able to feel his breath against her forearm as she shaves. Once she’s pleased with a job well done ( _not clean shaven, but neater and shorter_ ), the razor goes to the countertop, hands grasping a towel to wipe his face clean.

“I canna tell her, Claire,” Jamie says, breaking the silence, and she freezes, towel in hand and pressing to his chin as she watches him open his eyes to look at her.

“What sort of father am I? Too much of a coward to tell his own daughter that she’s…”

His jaw tightens and he takes the towel from Claire, wiping at his own face now.

Standing between his legs, she feels too close, out of place. “Jamie, you aren’t the first parent who hasn’t been able to say it. Some never do. And at her age, it’s...it’s too big for anyone, let alone a child, to wrap their mind around.”

“I dinna want her to be afraid,” he confesses, choking a bit on the words. “If she’s afraid, I’m no’ sure I could be strong for her. Because Christ, I’m terrified, but as long as she thinks she’s only sick and will go home, she doesna ask questions I canna answer.” The sound that leaves him is choked off, a sob he attempts to stop but isn’t quite successful. “I’m a selfish bastard for that, and I ken it.”

All that Claire wants to do is soothe him somehow, both hands cradling his face as a tear slides down her cheek. “No, Jamie. Christ, no. Right now she isn’t afraid, she isn’t terrified to close her eyes, she’s calm. I think it’s your choice. And if you choose not to tell her, that’s okay. It’s alright, Jamie,” she whispers. She won’t judge him for it, whatever he decides. It could be a completely different story when her symptoms get worse, as the cancer begins to take a much larger toll on her body.

For a few minutes, the two of them are in silent communion with one another; Claire still in front of him, cheek pressing to the crown of his hair as her arms wrap around him, his head resting against her chest.

They part, but she’s there every evening with him, sitting in the quiet of the room, holding him close at the end of each day. Christ knows he needs it after letting Faith take every ounce of strength he has. At midnight on January first, as Claire hugs him goodnight, Jamie lets his lips briefly brush against hers. 

A soft way to usher in a year he knows is going to destroy him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many people have reached out to me with their own experiences and gratitude for writing this story and going down this path. The next few chapters are likely going to rough, but I _promise_ it gets better, lighter, and happier. I'm just as grateful for all of you telling your stories to me and for reading.
> 
> Also, just to clarify because someone asked and I didn't realize it might be slightly confusing--there are sometimes weeks in between moments. For example, November took place on Thanksgiving and the few days after. December picked up again on December 23rd. So some time has obviously passed. These events aren't happening back-to-back-to-back. I hope that clears things up!


	10. January 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire and Faith talk.

It takes every ounce of convincing Claire has in her body to make the damned stubbornest man she’s ever met in her life go get a real meal.

“A deli sandwich, a lobster roll, a burger. _Anything_ , Jamie, that isn’t a bag of something out of a vending machine or a frozen meal. Please. As a doctor, I’m begging you.”

It hadn’t been easy, but with a promise that she wouldn’t leave Faith’s room for any reason, he’d finally gone, telling her to text if there was ‘anything.’ Claire promises, then sits beside a currently sleeping little girl, mindlessly scrolling the news on her phone.

“Doctor Claire?”

Looking up quickly, the phone is slipped into her lab coat pocket as she smiles, reaching out to lightly touch Faith’s arm. “Hello, darling.” She smiles softly at her. “Your dad just went to get something to eat. He’ll be back soon.” At least she can promise Faith that and keep it. She hopes.

“Can ye make Daddy sleep, too?” she asks, clearly more clever than Claire is giving her credit for.

“What do you mean?” she asks of Faith curiously, holding her hand now.

Reaching up with her free hand, she presses her fingers under her own eyes. “He has dark eyes.”

Claire watches and listens; he’s tired. Even a child can pick up on that, because it changes a person physically. The dark circles under seemingly permanent red-rimmed eyes.

“He’s sad because I’m sick. Aye?”

Oh, God. Claire isn’t prepared for this. It shouldn’t be her having this conversation with the little girl, but she finds herself unable to put up a wall, not wanting her to be afraid to ask questions or think she can’t. “It makes all of us sad, Faith. We don’t like seeing you so sick.”

She seems to consider that for a moment before asking her next question. “How come I dinna do the medicine?”

The chemo; Claire knows exactly what she means, and a knot of sudden desperation for Jamie to return forms in her stomach. Wetting her lips, Claire lets her eyes visually trace the small veins in Faith’s hand before taking a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Sometimes medicine won’t make you feel much better, darling,” she says quietly, raising her gaze to look directly at her.

“I asked my Da a question, but it made him cry, so I didna try to ask again,” Faith says slowly, raising her eyes to look directly at Claire.

She knows before the question comes out what it’s going to be, and she’s never been more unprepared for anything in her life.

“What happens to Da when I die?”

It was bound to happen; she’s in a pediatric cancer ward with nurses chatting in the hallways, parents pacing the halls on cell phones talking to family, other doctors, religious elders. And still, Claire isn’t prepared to hear this sweet five-year-old girl ask about her own death. Especially not in the context of her father.

“Well,” she begins, wetting her lips, desperately trying to speak around a lump in her throat. “Your dad has your aunt Jenny and uncle Ian. And he’ll have me, too,” she explains. Not that she assumes Jamie will want anything to do with her. Not when Claire was supposed to fix his only child. “A lot of people love him, Faith, and all of those people will make sure he doesn’t have to be by himself.”

Faith slowly turns more to her side so that she’s facing Claire fully. “I dinna want him to be sad. But he is anyway.”

 _Everyone’s sad_ , Claire thinks, but she just reaches out, stroking Faith’s temple tenderly. “It isn’t wrong or bad to feel sad, Faith. And it’s not even wrong or bad to feel scared. That’s all okay.”

“Does dying mean…” Faith pauses, trying to puzzle it out in her head for a second before looking back at Claire. “Does it mean I’ll be wi’ my mam?” She knows that her mother _died_ , that she’s with angels.

There’s a gossamer thread holding Claire’s emotions in check, a breath away from breaking, even as she nods and raises Faith’s hand to kiss the back of it. “That is what it means, darling. Your dad will be so grateful that your mother can be with you.” She watches Faith nod, apparently out of questions for now. 

For a moment, Claire remembers the night a police officer came to her front door. Young, unpracticed. He’d told her haltingly that there had been an accident, that her husband, he was sorry to say, was dead. Then, she’d only felt numb, had let Frank’s family carry her along through everything. She’d let her mind shut out all but the necessary: eat, sleep, work, bathe. Do it all again. It was the only way to protect herself that she could think of. She was stripped raw by the death of her husband, and she’d wrapped herself in the only thing that gave her meaning and purpose: work.

Now, it’s the work that’s slowly gutting her all over again.

By the time Jamie returns, Claire is reading out loud quietly to a not-quite-asleep child. Finishing, she closes the book and puts it aside before looking at him and nodding toward the door. Together they step through it and she eyes the fast food cup in his hand. Not ideal food calories. Better than a cold ‘beef’ hamburger from the refrigerated vending machine.

“What is it?” he asks, reaching out with his hand, just barely grazing her hip before dropping his arm, remembering himself and where they are, for her sake only.

“She has a lot of questions, Jamie. I think… I just mean children are perceptive. It might be a good idea to let me send a social worker to speak with her.”

Everything in Jamie tenses but he does nod, letting out a breath. “I ken you’re right,” he finally admits.

“What about you?” Claire asks him quietly. He needs someone better than her to talk to. She watches him as he takes one more sip of his drink before walking to a trashcan and tossing it away. 

Jamie shakes his head when he looks at her again. “No. I’m no’ the dying one.”

And then he’s gone, back in the room, letting the door close behind him quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short but needed chapter. Thank you for reading!


	11. February 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valentine's Day.

Let it never be said that when Faith Fraser asks for something, her father doesn’t deliver.

Currently, her hospital room is awash in lace doilies and paper hearts made from red and pink paper. There’s gold heart garland strung across the window and she’s wearing pink pajamas with white hearts. Faith is in full Valentine’s Day mode, embracing this ‘holiday’ just as thoroughly as anything else. And Jamie might be, too. He bought her the biggest teddy bear he could fit through the door and two dozen heart-shaped balloons. Anything to make her smile, make her eyes widen in wonder. There won’t be a do-over next year; he has to do all of these things _now_ , make sure she gets to experience them before she can’t.

That’s what has them writing out Valentine’s cards for all of the nurses that have taken care of her. Faith’s sitting propped up in bed making hearts and drawing pictures, and when she’s done, Jamie helps her write her first and last name; she’s good at it, they’ve been practicing, and sometimes her ‘Rs’ are backward, but that’s alright. This is her at age five.

“Da?” Faith is working hard on drawing a heart with a crayon.

“Aye, love?” He’s waiting to write _Happy Valentine’s Day_ in a swirly sort of cursive and simply watching, taking in every single feature of her in profile.

“Are ye making one for Doctor Claire?” she asks innocently, looking up at him.

One of his eyebrows raises. “Should I, _a leannan_?”

Faith nods sagely. “Ye give Valentimes to people ye love. And she said she loves ye.”

“ValentiNe...what?” Jamie blinks at his daughter, wondering when this happened, exactly.

“She told me,” comes the cryptic reply as she starts shoving paper and doilies and gold hearts at him. “So ye have to make her one.”

Apparently, his daughter is the authority here, and so, Jamie begins constructing a card for Claire under Faith’s watchful eye and direction. Soon, there’s a folded red piece of construction paper, a pink heart glued on the front like a card and inside, dozens of gold heart stickers.

“Ye have to write her something. Like a ‘roses are red’ poem.”

Sitting back in his chair to think, Jamie appraises his daughter, trying not to laugh and cry at the same time, even if he has no idea why in Christ’s name he’d shed tears right now. Maybe because it feels so simple. Normal. They could be anywhere right now having this conversation. “Alright. Even though violets are no’ _blue_. Violet means purple.”

“Why’s it called ‘violets are blue’ then?” Faith asks in confusion.

“I dinna ken, lass. Because they needed the poem to rhyme, I suppose.”

That just makes her confusion grow. “Who?”

Reaching forward, Jamie taps her nose. “People who write love poems. So. ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, I like ye more than a stinky shoe.’ Is that a good one?”

Faith giggles and shakes her head. “No, Daddy! Do another one.”

He wishes he could have recorded that laugh, but he knows it’s imprinted on his heart. He won’t forget. “Alright. ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you.’”

Nodding quickly, Faith shoves a crayon at him. “Write it down!”

So, Jamie does, trying not to think too deeply about actually giving this to Claire. For good measure, he adds some glue and glitter, then holds it up for Faith to appraise.

“I like it!” She’s rewarded for her guidance with a flurry of kisses all over her face. She tries to stay awake to see Claire when she comes in the evening, but between the activity earlier and actually going for a short walk, she’s too exhausted. By the time Claire stops in, Faith’s fast asleep in bed.

Quietly moving to Jamie’s side, Claire makes sure the door is fully closed before dipping a bit to kiss the top of his head, letting her nose nuzzle his curls. Then, she sits, reaching for his hand and kissing his shoulder. She needs this while he will give it, to memorize it before he realizes she broke her promise to save his daughter and goes back to Scotland.

“Today was a good day, Sassenach.”

“Was it?” she asks softly. “It looks like Cupid threw a party in here,” Claire teases as she looks around.

“Aye, and Cupid’s true name is Faith.” Jamie reaches to the table beside the bed and hands the homemade card for Claire over to her. “She said something verra interesting today.”

As Claire looks at the card, she feels something in her chest tighten even as she smiles, laughing softly. “Sweet as sugar, am I?”

“She said ye loved me.”

For a moment it feels as though she isn’t breathing, and Claire looks from him to the Valentine in her hand. “I said a lot of people love you.”

“That’s no’ a denial of yer own feelings,” Jamie points out before reaching out to make sure she can see his face, lightly tipping her chin up with his fingers. “Why do ye think I made a Valentine for ye?”

She doesn’t dare say it aloud, that he might love her. Part of her is screaming that she wants him to say it, the other part of her knows it will hurt that much more when he leaves. Instead of saying anything else, Claire kisses him soundly, parting her lips for him to pour his feelings into. When they pull apart from one another, she subtly looks to be sure Faith is still sleeping before kissing him again, more innocently.

“I suppose that’s my answer then,” he decides with a lopsided but small smile.

“You have a very observant daughter.” Claire hadn’t realized her words could be misconstrued, but at the same time, had they been? If things were different, if there was such a thing as happy endings for everyone in the real world, this would be a Hallmark movie.

“She does tend to speak her mind.” As Jamie takes Claire’s hand he tugs it to his lips to kiss her knuckles. “Canna say I’m displeased by it in this instance.”

Letting herself smile, Claire leans into him, sighing contently as his arm wraps around her shoulders. There will be time for displeasure and grief later. Right now, they can enjoy the fruits of Faith’s labor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wouldn't normally spoil my own story, but next Sunday, bring a case of tissues and plenty of alcohol if you partake. Or maybe just a pint of ice cream. Something. Anything.
> 
> March 2015, everything changes.


	12. March 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where everyone dreads what happens next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will post today as well, at 4 pm US central.

It’s the first Thursday of the month when Faith stops eating and begins hurting. She cries, reaching for Jamie to fix something he can’t. If he could rip out his own heart and give it to her and make it better, he would; he would give her anything. Once, when she was two and trying to keep up with older cousins, she fell down a few steps at Lallybroch. Jamie had held her, kissed her bruised leg, and just like that, magically, she was better. He could fix anything wrong with her, then. Now, he could walk through fire for her and it wouldn’t do anything. He’s right there as a morphine drip begins and she slips off to a drug-induced sleep.

There are moments she’s awake and he cherishes them, clings to the sound of her voice. He doesn’t leave her side, and tells her stories even when she sleeps. He knows; she drinks nothing, eats nothing, or close to it. She’s shutting down and it terrifies him, makes him want to wrap around her fragile frame and keep her with him. When her lips chap and her skin dries out, Jamie takes care of her, trying to soothe her tears when she has them while hiding his own. She’s so _cold_ already, and he piles blankets on her, terrified that she’s still here, with him, but there’s no warmth to her anymore.

When she doesn’t wake from sleeping on a morning seventeen days later, his eyes stay glued to the monitors that tell him she’s still _there_. Claire is the soft place to fall, and he’s grateful to her for closing the door to the room when they talk, when she tells him Faith has some time left with him, but it won’t be long. It’s like collapsing in on himself, and he isn’t sure what was worse: his wife’s fast and bloody death, or knowing, dragging out the inevitable. One left him in such a state of shock he couldn’t function. This is giving him time to let himself think nothing good will ever come after the death of his daughter. He doesn’t want anything, he doesn’t want a damned thing short of his baby with him, healthy and happy.

It’s late on a Wednesday night when Claire comes. He hasn’t moved save to use the bathroom; she knows there’s nothing else going through his mind, nothing else that matters to him right now. She touches his shoulder, then leans over the bed to kiss Faith’s forehead tenderly. Her breathing is noisy, rattling, too much mucus in the back of her throat that her body can’t move or get rid of. Sitting quietly beside Jamie, Claire’s silent. There are no words, she won’t give him platitudes or bereavement speeches; she can’t do that to him. It’s a surprise to her when he reaches over after a few moments and takes her hand, clinging to her like a lifeline.

“I thought I wanted her buried next to her mam. But that’s all the way in France, and I canna…” Tears fill Jamie’s eyes as he blinks and looks down, swallowing heavily. He can’t let her go that far from him, just as he couldn’t leave her all alone when she was born so early.

Claire squeezes his hand tightly. “Next to your mother, Jamie,” she whispers.

He considers it, then nods, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand. “Do ye ever think the universe is trying to tell ye something, Claire?”

“What do you mean?”

Sitting back, his eyes stay trained on Faith. “My da dying was the first time I felt death reach out and touch me, ye ken? My mother, Willie, the bairn; I was still too much of a lad to wrap my mind around it. But my da died, and I had Annalise. Then I lost her, but I had Faith. She kept me whole, and now I’m losing her. Perhaps the universe is trying to tell me I’m no’ supposed to have _this_. It isna for me, for some reason, and if I open my heart again, I’ll only keep losing what I let in.”

 _You wouldn’t lose me_ , Claire wants to scream, though she can’t promise that. It isn’t about her anyway, and she reaches out to wrap her arms around him tightly. “Jamie, everyone deserves to have a person to love. To have a person who loves them. Losing that doesn’t mean anything other than life can be cruel.” She’s lost both parents, lost them in one fell swoop, then her uncle, then her husband. Loss doesn’t miss anyone and doesn’t particularly care how many have already been taken from a person’s life.

“Perhaps to be wi’ me, or to be loved by me, is a curse.”

“I don’t believe in things like that and neither should you,” she says firmly. “You know better than that.”

“Then why do I no’ get to keep the people most precious to me?”

She has no answer for that, and instead kisses his temple, desperate to infuse in him the belief that he’s worth being loved, that he deserves it, that the death of his daughter isn’t a punishment. “Jamie, you need to get some sleep.”

“I’m fine, Sassenach.”

It’s the answer she expected, so she sits with him in silence. They do this for three days until she realizes he’s not accepting food even when she has nurses send it right to the room. When Claire gets there that night, she brings her own food, deciding he can try to say no to her directly. Putting down a bag, she first kisses Faith, then sits beside him again just as she does every evening.

“I brought some sandwiches. You need to eat, get something in your system. Please?”

Jamie rubs his face; he’s pale, he has less than a full beard but more than his normal scruff, the circles under his eyes are darker than they ever have been. “I’m no’ hungry.”

“You might not feel hungry but your body is starving, Jamie,” she says quietly. “Please, don’t make me beg you.”

When he looks at her, there’s so much defeat on his face that she wants to weep with him and wrap him in her arms tightly. She wants to beg, but for his forgiveness. Instead, she quietly reaches for a sandwich and hands it over to him. “It’s just ham and cheese, lettuce, tomato.” Simple, not made for more than sustenance. When he takes it and actually begins to eat, relief floods through her, and they sit together while she eats her own sandwich in solidarity. For three hours, Claire asks nothing else of him, but he needs to get out of the room, he needs to stretch, needs to use his legs.

“Will you go get some fresh air?”

“Absolutely not,” he responds, shaking his head. “I’m no’ leaving her alone.”

“Jamie,” Claire says quietly. “She isn’t alone. I’ll be here.”

He shakes his head again. “I dinna mean to slight ye, Claire. I only meant I’m not letting her think for a moment I’m gone.”

“She wouldn’t think that. And we both know she would tell you to listen to Doctor Claire.” Her words don’t invoke a smile, not even a ghost of one. “Please. Jamie, you need to take a walk. Five minutes. Walk outside for five minutes and breathe in real air.”

There’s silence from him for so long that she decides not to ask again. Finally, though, he slowly stands, knees creaking with it, from not moving much at all. “Alright. Five minutes. But then I wilna move again until I have to.”

Claire stands with him and tries to give him an encouraging smile. “I won’t leave, I promise. She’ll never be alone.”

Jamie nods and presses a kiss to her temple, then kisses Faith’s forehead softly, whispering his love for her. His legs feel like lead; they don’t want to go, but finally, he does, walking toward the elevators. Only once he’s in them alone does he sink back against the wall and let himself feel how exhausted he is. His _bones_ feel tired, and he rubs his eyes for a moment. They burn, and he allows himself to consider that Claire’s right: he needs to get out of the room more. It’s hard, not knowing if his daughter will linger days longer or weeks or hours. He’s rooted to the chair in her room because of the uncertainty and fear, or the sheer hope that she’ll open her eyes again and look at him. He misses her eyes, the brilliant blue of them; never did he think that just gazing into her eyes would be a thing he took for granted, but he has, and he hates himself for it. He remembers when she was tiny, the way only one eye would open in the light as he held her. He used to kiss that one closed eye, then press her to his shoulder and rub her back, and eventually she would press her face into his neck. He should have memorized _those_ moments. He wants to shake every parent he sees and force them to soak it all in, remember it now, because if something ever happens, they’ll have nothing but wishes that they had.

Outside, Jamie looks up at the night sky, realizing it’s not as cool as he thought it would be while taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. It hits him as he walks around the building; there are things he won’t do with his daughter ever again. Piggyback rides, tickling her until she squeals. She should start school in September, but she won’t. He won’t teach her to ride a bicycle or much later, drive. He won’t get to lecture her about the boy or girl she spends too much time obsessing over, he won’t get to stay up the night of her first date waiting for her to return. No weddings, no first jobs, nothing else. It hits him in a way it only could after putting some distance between them. It would drive him to his knees if not for a nearby bench, and he sits and leans, elbows on his knees and hands covering his face while he weeps. It’s ugly crying, his nose running with it as he gives in, breaking down and choking on the fear and tears. He doesn’t understand why it happened, why _his_ daughter.

Knowing he needs to pull himself together, he exhales and sits for a few more moments before finally standing, needing to get back inside, to at least watch Faith breathe as long as he can. When the elevator doors open on her floor and he walks down the hall, a group of four nurses turns to look at him, not saying anything. They just _look_ at him as if they’ve been struck mute.

He knows.

He knows it right then and runs, not wanting to think it even though his mind is screaming at him that he wasn’t _there_. The door is open when he arrives at her room, the chairs empty. Looking at the bed, there’s Faith, wrapped in Claire’s arms. Claire, who’s sobbing, holding his daughter to her chest, cradling the back of her head.

_No. No, no, no, no._

“Jamie, I’m so sorry.”

_No._

He takes one step forward.

“She stopped breathing. God, I’m so sorry.”

The next step he takes sends Jamie to the ground. Before the world goes black he sees, so vividly, his daughter in a tree at Lallybroch, wild red curls whipping behind her in the wind. He was below and she wasn’t too high up, his arms extended out to her. In a moment when she knew he would have her; when trust was for certain and she had no reason to doubt him, her high, sweet voice called out to him.

_“Catch me, Da!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Nobody knows how to say goodbye_   
>  _It seems so easy ‘til you try._   
>  _Then the moments passed you by_   
>  _Nobody knows how to say goodbye._   
>  _Nobody knows how to get back home_   
>  _And we set out so long ago._   
>  _Search the heavens and the Earth below._   
>  _Nobody knows how to get back home. - The Lumineers_


	13. April 2016 (Part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 begins here. With a funeral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll give you a head's up right now - part two is short, but it's not easy. You've let me bring you this far, trust me to get Jamie and Claire through this, too ❤

He never asks the question so much as Claire makes a decision on her own. She’s going to Scotland; she’s taking the time off from work and going with him. It pretty much ‘outs’ the nature of their relationship to anyone paying attention but what could it possibly matter now? If there are ethics brought up when she returns, she’ll deal with it then. Not now, not while she’s abroad. Later. Truth be told, she isn’t even sure he wants her there, but he hadn’t told her not to come when she’d said she wanted to be there for him. She took care of everything, getting the authorization to transport Faith back to Scotland, registering her death, gathering all of the paperwork needed. What Jamie needed to sign, she asked him to after explaining what each thing was. She isn’t sure he listened, just signed.

It doesn’t bother her; the weight of it, being too numb to make any decisions. She understands it. On their plane now from Newark to Scotland, she looks at him, too tall for the seat, looking as though he’s trying not to throw up but whether he’s airsick or just grieving and nauseous, she isn’t sure. His entire world has fallen apart; it was supposed to be his daughter here with him on the flight back, excited to go home, to see family, to be well and happy and greet all of her cousins cheerfully. Claire is a poor substitute. 

When they land, it’s a long taxi ride to his childhood home, but when Lallybroch comes into view it takes her breath away. It’s large but not obnoxiously so, and just from the outside where their bags are being taken from the boot of the car, she can feel the warmth of family. When they come to greet him, Claire stands out of the way, an observer only. She assumes the tiny ball of dark hair and energy is his sister by the way she wraps her arms around him and he wraps his around her in return. His movements are stiffer but he reciprocates, dropping his head so that his lips simply press to the crown of her head. His brother in law is next, a hug with claps on the shoulder before Ian makes his way with his cane back toward the house, stopping when he sees Claire.

“Ye must be the lass that cared so for Faith.”

When she’s acknowledged, Jenny and Jamie both look at her and the crushing weight of failed promises makes her want to shrink at the scrutiny. She can’t find her voice and once she does she can’t find the right words so she only nods, wetting her lips. “I’m Claire.” 

She doesn’t expect the hug that comes, her eyes closing tightly against a wave of emotion. This isn’t hers to share, this grief, not when she couldn’t bring Faith back to them healthy, not when she hasn’t known years of loving such a special little girl. Still, Ian is kind to her, leads her indoors with Jamie and Jenny bringing up the rear. Inside, curious children, three of them, peek around a corner, but when they see their uncle there’s no stopping the little girls even when Jenny yells out for the kids to go upstairs.

Jamie shakes his head and sits to accept all three children into his arms; wee Jamie, Maggie and Katherine as they’re introduced to Claire later. He doesn’t speak, just holds them all for a few long moments before kissing each of their foreheads in a clear signal that he’s done for now. Jenny pulls them back and sends them upstairs while Claire stands and watches. She can see two infants swaddled and currently sleeping in a bassinet that can be carried easily from room to room. So much new life surrounding Jamie could be good, but for now, she imagines it must feel like a hot dagger to his heart. She watches as he gets up slowly and begins heading for the stairs, each step looking heavy for him to take. For a moment she wants to follow him, but there’s a realization that she needs to fill his family in on how far she’s gotten, of what things need to be taken care of next. So, she stays and sits with them in a large sitting room in front of a fire. It’s so antiquated but it feels like _home_ , and Claire speaks quietly; of those final moments, the things she was sure of ( _Faith being buried next to Ellen Fraser_ ) and things she felt she couldn’t be the one to decide ( _what Faith should be wearing_ ). By the time she’s done she’s emotionally exhausted, spent, and makes her way upstairs, following the directions to Jamie’s room. Pushing the door open quietly, she can see him sitting on the edge of the bed and enters, closing the door behind her again as she moves to sit beside him.

“I know how overwhelming this all must be,” she begins, reaching out with one hand and covering his.

He doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t reject her touch, either.

“There are some things you have to decide, Jamie. I can’t.”

Claire can feel him tense beside her, but she has no choice but to press on. “Do you want...a viewing?”

Heartbeats go by before he finally nods. “Aye.”

“What about a gathering, after, Jamie?”

He hangs his head, jaw working as he tries to process his assorted thoughts. “I dinna care to entertain when all I want is to…”

She knows and reaches out, rubbing his back softly with her hand. “We don’t have to do that. Or, you don’t have to be there. Either way, Jamie, nothing has to happen that you aren’t ready for.” He’s tense beneath her hand and she drops it, feeling useless. “You should try to get some sleep.” 

Without acknowledging her words he rises, beginning to undress. She stays frozen in her spot as she watches him strip down to briefs and a shirt before going to lean against the hearth, staring into an empty void.

“Do you want me to go?” she asks him quietly, slowly standing. “There’s a hotel, not far off.”

Jamie turns to her and shakes his head. “No, Sassenach. I dinna want ye to go. I’m sorry, I’m no’...”

Claire shakes her head, standing at his side now, reaching to take his hand in hers. “You don’t need to be sorry for anything, Jamie.” Only her. She’s the one who needs to plead with his entire family to forgive _her_.

The evening of the viewing, she isn’t sure what to expect. Something quite Catholic, she assumes, but the sheer abundance of people overwhelms her. She doesn’t know five people who would come to her funeral with such genuine connection to her, let alone the hundreds that pour through the doors of the funeral home. Nursery school workers, those nurses who’d first taken care of Faith when she was born prematurely, Sunday school teachers, all of her mother’s family. They fill the small sanctuary and from the back, she watches as they walk one by one down to where the open coffin lays.

In the end, Jenny had to go shopping. All of Faith’s clothes were too big for the size she’d become. But now, as it’s Claire’s turn to view the little girl she can’t help but know she’d love the pink dress with gold trim. It’s perfect, her vision blurring when she realizes someone ( _Jenny?_ ) tucked a photo of Jamie and Faith into the corner of the lid of the coffin. She won’t be all alone in the dark after all, and a tear makes its way over the apple of Claire’s cheek. Reaching out, one hand lightly presses to Faith’s forehead one more time, the cold expected but still startling.

“I’m so sorry, Faith,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.” There’s more she wants to say but the words are stuck in her throat. Bending, she presses her lips now where her fingers were. There’s no hint of baby shampoo to the red curls on her head. The essence of her is gone and it isn’t fair; Claire wants to scream but the sound is choked and instead, she moves so that Jamie can have his turn. There’s nowhere for Claire to go but to her seat, the one beside her open for him. She can’t hear him, but she can see the way his shoulders move and shake, watches as he leans over and she knows he’s kissing her cheek one more time. Jamie reaches into his pocket and pulls out something red, allowing Claire to catch sight of a gold heart sticker. The Valentine’s Day card, the one from him to his daughter. She’s seen it; she packed up Faith’s hospital room. She’s seen what he wrote inside and remembers it now as though imprinted on her heart.

_Roses are red_  
_Violets are blue_  
_You make the world better  
_Just by being you.__

_____ _

_____ _

_There isn’t a bonnier lass than you in any country a leannan. You will always be the most important Valentine in my heart._

_Love,_

_Da_

Jamie finally sits next to her, eyes red, cheeks wet, and for the first time he leans into Claire, seeking her arms which she gives freely. Her arms wrap around him the best they can with how they’re sitting until a priest begins to lead the Rosary. That’s when Jamie sinks back into himself and she can’t be sure if he finds solace or more pain in the repetitive prayer.

When the day of the funeral arrives, Claire stands right beside Jamie at the front of a beautiful church, haunting in its grandness, heavy with the confessions and burdens each old stone has heard over a century or two. She watches as Jamie’s family and close friends carry the tiniest of coffins to the front of the church, feels Jamie’s hand seeking hers. If she’s honest, she doesn’t remember much. The priest speaks about Faith, how precocious she was, how beautiful in spirit, how witty and kind. Claire’s aware of Jamie sitting there, still as a statue, is aware of Jenny in the pew behind them, crying. It feels as though she’s intruding on a moment that isn’t hers to witness, but she’s steadfast, holds his hand, stares ahead, sits when the rest of the family goes up for Communion. By the time they get to the cemetery, she expects it to be a typical Scottish day, gray and drizzling. It’s the exact opposite. The sky is wide and blue, the sun shining down on the graves of all Jamie’s family gone too soon.

The one time she breaks, it comes as the coffin is lowered into the ground slowly while everyone, including Jamie, participates in reciting the Lord’s prayer. She means to, but when her mouth opens nothing comes out but a quiet breath, captured by the memory of Faith laughing so hard at something Jamie’d done that tears of joy poured over her cheeks. The mere idea that the world has been robbed of such a sound forever makes her own tears fall, silently, as a hand covers her mouth. She tries to stop, tries to swallow it down, but it pours out of her now until the woman beside her, Mrs. Crook, reaches out to rub her back. Claire can feel how thin her fingers are, and as she begins to calm she wonders how much life and death the elderly woman has seen in her years of working for the Fraser family. All of the people buried in this specific plot, to be sure. Once calm, Claire clears her throat and lets out a breath, nodding that she’s fine, and the rest of the day, truly, is a blur. 

She only feels as though she’s aware of it again when she’s alone with Jamie in his room. Undressing in the bathroom and slipping into a shirt to sleep in, they move around one another, his family having assumed their relationship was so much more than it is. When she’s in bed he uses the bathroom, moving on autopilot before getting into bed beside her, lying flat on his back. What she wants is to hold him again, to wrap him in her arms and protect what’s left of his heart. He’s been through so much, lost so many people. She wants to love him and guard him while at the same time scream that she’s the reason he’s hurting. Maybe he already knows it, and that’s why he won’t reach out to her now.

Silence stretches on until Claire reaches out, pushing a curl out of his face. “I’m here with you, Jamie,” she whispers.

He doesn’t move away but he doesn’t speak, and it’s enough for her to drop her hand.

“I’ll be with you until you don’t need me.”

She has no idea how long it is before sleep pulls her under. She only knows she’s waiting for the moment the penny drops and she’ll no longer be welcome in his bed.


	14. May 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything breaks.

It’s been two weeks since Faith’s funeral. Claire isn’t sure why she’s still in Scotland; whether it’s guilt or love or a combination of both. Jamie’s certainly done nothing to help clear it up for her and she doesn’t expect him to. Maybe she hasn’t left because she knows once she does, she’ll likely never see him again. Something in her wants to keep him close, while at the same time she knows she should go. Her life can’t stay on hold forever and she isn’t helping anymore. Everything that she can do has been done and it will never be close to enough. More than never having Jamie again though, now she’ll never see the people in his family she’s gotten to know and enjoy. Jenny, of course, though it had taken days to get the woman to speak directly to her. Ian has been most of Claire’s source of comfort. He seems to know when she needs a dram and pulls her aside. They don’t often speak during those moments, but Christ does she appreciate him for keeping her sane.

She hasn’t asked Jamie if he wants her to go anywhere; if he wants her to stay in the same bed as him, even. He’s never said anything, and as she tries to recall what they’ve spoken of lately nothing comes to mind. They hardly speak two words all day to one another. Or, more accurately, she tries to talk to him and he says nothing. She tries not to take it personally, seeing as how he doesn’t speak much at all in general to anyone but young Jamie and little Maggie and Katherine. He spends long hours holding either baby Michael or Janet, sitting along the couch with his knees raised so that the baby can rest against them. He speaks to them softly, mostly in Gaelic, when Claire catches sight of him. She stands upstairs in the shadows listening, able to make it out each time he smiles in his speech or when something makes his breath hitch. Never once has she interrupted, and always she’s in bed before he decides to let the babies sleep in their bassinet. 

Today was hard for him, for everyone: Faith’s birthday. No one quite knew what to do, how to celebrate it, or not. The indecision and not knowing led Claire to the cemetery late in the day, placing flowers on the fresh grave. She stays for an hour at least, but she sees no one else and finally goes back to Lallybroch where everyone seems to be busy doing other things. Anything to keep their minds off of the date. Wandering through the large home, Claire tries to imagine Faith in the hallways, running after being told not to, shouts of _careful!_ on the stairs from every adult. At the back of the property, there’s an outdoor playhouse that was very clearly Faith’s. All of the pink and gold makes it obvious fairly quickly, and Claire can’t help but wonder if it will stay. Will Jenny’s children play in it or will it be taken away, too heavy a reminder for the family? It means something to see it now, still as it was before Faith was ever diagnosed; proof that once, everything was normal. Once, her father built her something in the hopes of years and years of playing and laughter. As she stares at it, Claire wipes away a stray tear, sniffling and wrapping her arms around herself.

In a house and estate as large as Lallybroch, it’s difficult not to feel as though there are ghosts watching. All Claire can hope now is that with the amount of family Jamie’s lost, his little girl is well taken care of, unafraid. She’d promised Faith that her father would be surrounded by people who love him, and as she walks back inside now, she has an urgent hope that Faith is just as surrounded, that she knows how very much everyone loves her.

Indoors, Claire goes up to the room only to find Jamie already there, sitting at the end of the bed and leaning over, elbows on his knees. Joining him, she sits close and reaches out to touch his shoulder, not surprised when he doesn’t move at all. He has a fuller beard now, one she would be happy to shave for him but resists asking.

“Did she say anything, Claire?”

The question throws her for a moment; just the sound of his voice after not hearing him speak a full sentence to her in days is enough to startle her. “What?”

Jamie looks at her as if she’s daft before rephrasing. “Faith, did she--did she speak before…”

When she reaches out and tries to cover his hand with her own and he pulls away, Claire blinks quickly, folding her hands in her lap. “No, Jamie. She never woke up.”

“So it was peaceful, then?”

Swallowing heavily, there’s an inhale and a long exhale from her before she speaks again. “Yes, Jamie. It was. I promise.”

The sound he makes comes from the back of his throat, almost like a scoff but with so much more implied that it sounds a bit like disgust.

She realizes what she said, too late.

“I have to take yer word for it then, and only yours.”

“Jamie…”

“Ye _promise_? Just as ye promised you’d fix her?” He stands to pace, forehead furrowed as he thinks. “Do you remember that, Claire? The promise ye made me?”

When she finds her voice, opening her mouth very nearly leads to losing her stomach contents instead of words. “I remember, Jamie.” A whisper; not attempting to defend herself, she simply answers the question.

“I put everything I had into ye. When ye promised me that ye could take care of her, I _believed_ you, Claire.” He stops, back to her, hands on his hips. “Do ye deny it? That ye told me you could make her well again?”

Claire frowns at that, gaze blurry as she tries to remember back far enough. “I did promise you, but I promised that I would do my best, Jamie, not--”

“Your best still ended wi’ my daughter in the ground.” His voice is low when he speaks, and now he turns to face Claire. “Your best wasna good enough.”

When she looks up at him it makes her want to shrink away but she blinks quickly, holding her head up high only because she refuses to cry. “I know it wasn’t. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jamie.”

“No’ only did ye fail to save my daughter, ye convinced me, ye…” He closes his eyes tightly, jaw clenching. “Ye made me go, and I missed it. I missed the moment of her last breath.”

“I didn’t _make_ you do anything you didn’t need to. You _needed_ to get up, Jamie. Christ, it had been _days_. I couldn’t have known what would--”

“Aye, but it isna your place to treat _me_!” he snaps, for the first time truly yelling. “I was no’ your patient! Faith was! And ye sent me off for God knows what and she died alone!”

The words hurt and sting in a way that makes Claire want to claw at her own skin. “She wasn’t alone, Jamie.” When she speaks, she doesn’t seem to recognize her own voice; it’s hollow and tinny, the opposite of strong and sure.

“Oh, aye, ye were there wi’ her. Someone who hardly kent her, no’ her own father, but good enough.”

“I tried, Jamie!” Claire finally yells in return, standing now to face him fully. “I tried to save her and I couldn’t! I made the nurses try to find you but it was too late, Jamie. It was too late, and I didn’t...I couldn’t…” Her hands are gesturing uselessly. She hadn’t been able to get Faith to stay alive long enough for Jamie to say goodbye.

“I should have _been there_ , and it’s your fault that I wasna even _close_ to her. Takin’ a piss or just outside in the hallway, that’s fine. But ye sent me outside, downstairs for the fresh air. Ye kent she was dying but ye had me go sae far from her,” he says, choking on the words.

It hadn’t been that far, not really, but she won’t argue it. It might as well have been an ocean between them. “I didn’t send you out of the room so that you would miss it! For Christ’s sake, Jamie, I wanted you to get outside for a _moment_! To stretch and breathe fresh air. Yes, I tried to take care of you because I _wanted_ to.”

Jamie just stares at her, the muscles of his jaw working to tense, clench, then somewhat relax. “Ye should have put that caring into Faith. No’ me.”

“I could have taken care of you both!”

“Clearly not.”

Those two words are like being thrown into scalding water, and Claire stares at him in confusion and hurt. She’s blamed herself the entire time, but a part of her, deep down, hoped that he would reassure her. Take her into his arms and explain that he understood these things happened, it was outside of her control and ultimately they would heal. But instead he’s doubled down and she has all of the proof she needs: this was her fault. It was her fault; there were other therapies she could have tried, the stem-cells didn’t have to be the go-to, she could have offered surgery, could have done a higher dose of chemo, could have, should have.

“You’re right, Jamie.”

The words sound like they’re coming from somewhere else, certainly not her. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I…” She hangs her head and tries to come up with the right words. “I’m sorry I let you down.” But it’s so much more than that, isn’t it? She didn’t let him down. She let his child die on her watch. When she finds her footing again, her steps take her to her suitcase, reaching out to put her purse over her shoulder after making sure all of her things are tucked away. “I’m leaving. You don’t… you don’t need me anymore. Maybe you never did, I don’t know.” As she goes, unshed tears make her throat thick. “For whatever it’s worth, Jamie, I would trade places with your daughter in a heartbeat.”

She waits for him to say something, anything to acknowledge that she’s leaving. When he doesn’t, she turns to walk out of the room without a word, saying nothing else to him. All the way down the hall and stairs she waits for it, waits to hear him call out for her, but she’s far from romantic plots filled with revelations and apologies. It’s real, his hurt and his grief, her own emotions, and right now she’s the reason Faith is dead. There’s no one to intercept her as she leaves, goes to her rental car and drives away. Finding the nearest small town, Claire parks and pays for a hotel room, checking herself in, looking like a woman on the edge as she does. The fight within herself to not breakdown is only won until she’s in her hotel room with the door just barely closed behind her. She drops like a stone against the wall, shattering into pieces so small she can’t ever possibly be complete again. She sobs until it hurts and her throat is raw, and then merely makes her way to the mini fridge to sit beside it. Opening the door, she shoots back the first three bottles ( _all of them vodka_ ), then opens a fourth, then a fifth. It would have been better to stop off and get a bottle of something. Cheaper, no doubt.

Claire has no awareness of how much time has passed by the time her mouth feels dry enough to take stock of it. An attempt is made to count the little bottles ( _ten, she thinks_ ) before giving up. Standing, she stumbles to the bed and sinks into it on her side, but instead of sleep, more tears come. She had no idea there was anything left, and she sobs, curled tightly on her side. The only thing that makes them stop is exhaustion finally, blessedly, kicking in. Sleep she’s ignored in favor of soothing Jamie’s nightmares and telling herself if she took care of him, maybe he would never ( _could never_ ) think she knew the moment Faith would take her last breath and send him away. Her last conscious thought is that everything, all of it, is her fault.

She sleeps for twelve hours and when she wakes, there’s only one thing to do, really. In less than eight hours, Claire’s on a plane heading back to the States, leaving everything she thought she had in Scotland behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to put the pieces back together, slowly but surely. I promise ❤️


	15. October 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie's long road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, a time jump.

The therapy was Ian’s idea. Jamie has no doubt that his sister put the idea in his head, but it was still Ian who came to him first. No one said a word about Claire being gone and Jamie didn’t bring it up, but the day she left he took it out on a tree, hitting it until Jenny shrieked and yelled and called him a damned fool. He thought about it that night, instinctively looked over to the side of the bed formerly known as _hers_ and nearly called her.

But he didn’t.

He didn’t in June, a month spent trying to pretend he was fine, randomly going to the bookshop to check in while letting his brother-in-law continue running things. July was spent locked up in his room, refusing to come out to do anything other than get food and drink and go right back upstairs. The only people he paused for were the bairns, and sometimes he took Michael or Janet back with him. Jamie sat in the window when he did, rocking whichever babe he’d picked up, praying over them, trying desperately to remember the feel of Faith in his arms. August was when the therapy hammer finally dropped, and after reluctance, putting it off, and telling the adults in his family to mind their own business, he finally went. Multiple sessions were spent getting to know one another and going through the expected ( _early childhood, post-accident, post-death of his wife_ ) before the psychiatrist asked one solid question that punched Jamie right in the heart.

_Do you think Faith could or would have ever blamed you for her being sick?_

After it was asked, Jamie stared blankly ahead, past Doctor Cho and out of a window so high up all he could see was blue sky.

_I didna protect her._

It’s the only answer he’d been able to come up with. He was supposed to be the one to make things better, to keep her safe and whole, and he’d failed.

_That wasn’t an answer to the question._

He’d scrubbed at his face with his hands, gotten up, paced, then finally sat heavily again.

_No. She wouldna think I did anythin’ to her. She wouldna blame me._

The doctor’s voice was quiet when he asked his next question, leveling his gaze at Jamie.

_Then why do you blame yourself when cancer has no care for who it affects or who might feel at fault?_

That was the first revelation. It came at the end of the month, and as September rolled in and the prescribed meds did their jobs ( _Celexa for the depression, Rozerem so he could sleep_ ), he began running. Most of the time, he didn’t have a clue where he was running to, but the land Lallybroch sat on provided him with enough room. Sometimes he ran for an hour, sometimes two or three. He ran until he was too exhausted to keep going and typically stayed right where he went down, sleeping outdoors under the sky. Something about it made him feel closer to her. In his room, closed off, he couldn’t feel Faith. But out in the world she loved exploring so much, a hint of breeze could be her breath on his cheek as she curled up for a nap against his chest. A tickle on his arm could be her small fingers playing with the fine hairs. It hurt to think about her, but the thoughts usually came unbidden; one moment he could be removing his shoes and the next, choking on his own breath to think about the day Faith sat determined to learn how to tie her own laces. He was dealing with it better, trying to take what happened for what it was. His daughter got sick and she died. He didn’t make her sick or do anything to keep her sick. It wasn’t his fault.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault.

Mid-October is the approximate timeframe of the second revelation with Cho.

_I blamed Claire._

He blamed the only person who’d been able to stand toe-to-toe with the Neuroblastoma.

_Why?_

That fucking question. He hated it, not because of what it was, but because it forced him to remember the things he’d said to her. His words, the way they’d made her face crumple, the way she’d left.

_Because I could no’ blame anyone else._

Claire had become the face of it, of what was slowly killing his daughter, and then she’d been the one to tell him to leave. It was easy to make the whole of it her fault, to have something physical to be angry at. But she wasn’t just something.

_You said she loved Faith?_

_Aye. She cared for her, no’ just… she cared._

He’d let himself hope for the day he could take Claire with him to Scotland, had believed he’d lead her through the entrance with one hand in hers, Faith on the other side of him. That was the amount she loved Faith; enough that Jamie let himself think of a future with both of them.

_Perhaps, as you grieve, so does Claire._

That’s what it took for Jamie to realize what he’d done. He’d blamed the woman who’d devoted her life to saving his daughter. Then he let her go.

It’s late in Scotland when he pulls up her number in his phone. Jamie stares at it, chewing on the inside of his right cheek at their last exchange. Before Faith died, simple words that he took for granted. Words he didn’t see then as her caring for him but were full of it. _Have you slept? Do you need anything? I’ll be there._ He’d asked for nothing and she’d tried to give him everything. Thumb hesitating over the screen, he finally sends a message, a simple request for permission to call her, but before he can put the phone down and wait for a reply, the message bounces back. He tries again, checks to be sure his phone is still working, then calls. The number doesn’t even ring.

_We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is no longer in service._

Something close to panic tightens in his stomach before he tries again, and for some reason, a third time after that. Tapping a finger against his leg, Jamie thinks, then calls the hospital to look for her. It takes time, one person transferring him to the next, before finally, a nurse whose name he remembers fondly ( _Marsali_ ) tells him kindly that Doctor Randall has taken a leave of absence and no one knows exactly when she’ll return. When he hangs up, Jamie doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry; no longer working, a new phone number. As he sits heavily on the floor of his room, it hits him all at once. She’s grieving something horrible and he’d pushed her out. Closed himself off and then broke her. The only thing other than the death of his daughter that has made him cry in the last five and a half months is knowing what he’s done to a woman who only ever wanted to take care of him. Of them.

The drive to fix it is what has him up all night, searching for all of the ‘C. Randalls’ in Boston. There are 16. Glancing at the clock, he realizes ten P.M. Boston time is too late to make calls, so he keeps the tab open, gets a dram of whisky, and tries to sleep. As soon as the time is reasonable in Massachusetts he begins calling, going down the list; it would help if he had an address to narrow it down, but he doesn’t, so he starts at the top of the numbers. Nothing is a match; either the calls are never answered or it’s the wrong number. He dials the last of them, and if she doesn’t answer, if the voicemail recording isn’t her voice, he’s prepared to fly to Boston and knock door to door. As the number rings, he curses under his breath at the sixth flat tone just as it picks up. The voice on the other end sounds weary and further away somehow than an entire ocean.

“Jamie.”

At the sound of her voice, he chokes back the want to spill his guts to her right away. The sound of her voice; the way she calls out to him is like a call home, and he tightens his grip on the phone to get ahold of himself. He wants to say so many things at once that each individual word feels like a jumble, but finally, something coherent manages to fall from his lips.

“Christ, I miss ye.”

It isn’t what he planned, it’s not what he thought he’d say, but it is the truth. And the sound of a sob on the other end makes him choke on his own, the words pouring from him.

“I didna mean to blame ye, it wasn’t your fault, I ken it, but my mind was so…” He trails off, trying to say anything that makes what he did to her _right_. Nothing will, nothing ever can. “I’m sorry, Claire. Ye dinna have to forgive me or say anything.” She hasn’t reached out to him in months, either. For good reason. “I only needed ye to know it, that I’m sorry. That I dinna blame ye. I’m sorry. Christ, I’m so verra…”

“I understand, Jamie.”

Three words that don’t process at first, and he closes his eyes tightly against tears. “That makes one of us, then.” He’ll never understand how he so easily hurt her that way.

“Grief is complicated. It’s messy.”

Claire, for her part, is keeping herself together by gripping her kitchen counter until she’s white-knuckled. She never expected to hear from him again, and once she’d given her phone back to the hospital, she’d thought for sure that was it. She’s glad now that she saved his number, even if she knew there would never be a reason for her to call him again. When her screen lit up with his name her heart had stopped, skipped a beat, and now she’s listening to him apologize over and over again.

“Can ye ever forgive me, Sassenach?”

_Sassenach_. God, she’d missed the way that word sounded. Had found herself whispering it out loud to herself at times, but never could quite make it sound the way he did. His question surprises her, strikes her mute as her eyes dart around the room, trying to figure out a response. Forgive _him_? How had he managed to forgive _her_? “Forgive you for what?”

“For the things I said. I was sore. I said more than I meant.”

There’s a heartbeat of silence, then another.

“Forgiven.”

One word has never carried so much weight, and Jamie closes his eyes. That she would grant him this is incredible to him.

“I’m sorry, too.”

He’s shaking his head even though she can’t see him before remembering to speak. “Sorry for _what_ , Claire?”

There’s no answer save for her trying to choke back tears to find her words. “I let you down. I let Faith down, your family. I was so sure, Jamie. I knew the odds, but I believed--” Her words stop short as she forces back a sob, coughing with it. She’s been processing alone, withdrawing from the world and questioning the occupation she was so passionate about, doubting her skill. There has been no safety net of family, no one to kindly (or forcefully, with love) recommend that she speak to someone. She’s been on an island, adrift and struggling to keep her sanity. 

He’s never wanted to hold onto someone more, to reach through the phone and pull her into his arms, but he’ll have to do the best he can with what he’s got. “Claire, ye did no’ let anyone down. Ye gave me almost another full year wi’ my daughter. Ye made her laugh, made her smile. Gave her holidays in good health because of everything ye did.”

“I meant it, Jamie, when I said I would have done anything…”

“Hush now, Sassenach.” He can’t stomach the idea of something happening to her now, even if they’re so far now from where they were a year ago. “Are ye… I called the hospital. Are ye no’ working?”

Claire swallows on the other end of the line, rubbing a hand over her face. “Every patient is Faith, and I can’t stop second-guessing myself. I thought I was so right in my treatment, and I--” She stops speaking as fresh tears spill over, sniffling.

It pains him to talk about Faith at all, he’s avoided it except with Dr. Cho, but for her, for Claire, he can do anything. “Ye fought. You and Faith together,” he says huskily, fighting his own emotions back. Now is when the third revelation decides to make itself known. Just as he’d let his daughter carry him through the pain and fear, he’d let Claire do the same for him. Used her, let her be strength he could draw upon. “Ye did so much, gave me time wi’ her that was good, and for that alone, I owe ye my soul.” He pauses before adding one more thought, something he feels like she may need to hear now more than ever. “You’re a good doctor, Claire. Nothing has changed that, ye did everything right. You belong at that hospital.”

There’s no sound but her stilted breathing as she tries not to completely lose it. “I can’t right now, Jamie. Thank you, for what you’re saying. But I can’t face any more parents right now, I can’t let anyone else _down_.”

A tear falls down his cheek. Christ, what has he done to her? “Ye didna let me down, Claire,” he whispers.

There’s silence for so long she wonders if the connection has been broken. “Jamie?”

“Aye, Sassenach. I’m here.”

She hiccups, a residual cry that fell apart. “Will you call me again tomorrow?”

He doesn’t hesitate, closing his eyes in something resembling relief.

“I’ll call ye every damned day, Claire.”


	16. December 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie and Claire take steps. A time-jump from October to December.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! A bonus chapter.
> 
> I realize I haven't gone through and replied to everyone's comments for the last chapter that was posted. I need to and I will, but in the meantime I wanted to offer a chapter early as my sincere and heartfelt gratitude. The feedback has been passionate all the way around regarding this story whether readers have been frustrated with Jamie, sad for him (sad for both of them) or firmly on Claire's side. I know I've said this before, but I really didn't think anyone would ever read a story with this specific subject matter; I was just writing it for me. So, I'm really touched and floored at the reception of it all. Here's hoping I stick the landing, and here's to goodbye to Part 2! Thank you all so, so much from the bottom of my heart.
> 
> Part 3 begins on Thursday.

When the monitors began to pick up the rhythm in which they beeped, when Faith’s breathing changed, Claire knew. She’d yelled, _that_ much she remembers, the screaming for Jamie, for someone to _find him_. Without thinking, she’d climbed right onto the bed with the little girl, reached out to touch her cheek, to beg her not to go, not yet. There were no life-saving measures performed; that hurdle and those signatures from Jamie to not resuscitate had been taken care of two weeks ago. And so, all Claire could do was hold Faith as she took her final breath, unable to process that it happened, that she was gone. The only sound was the single tone until Jamie thundered in, looking like a complete mad man, eyes wild as he took in the scene in front of him. Never in her life had she felt so much like _nothing_ , trying to apologize while cradling his dead daughter.

Eventually, she’d moved so that he could take over, pulling Faith to his body and crying in a way that was so loud and so guttural Claire thought he might die, too. In the immediate days afterward, she tried telling herself she’d lost patients before, that she’d been the witness to more parents’ tears of agony than she could remember, but even with that thought, she knew this was different. Different because she’d started to fall in love with Jamie and she already loved Faith. The pain, at that time, was unmatched by anything she’d ever felt in her life. Even her husband’s death. When the police notified her of Frank’s accident she’d felt numb, felt nothing for such a long time. When it happened, she couldn’t imagine anything that would ever feel worse.

She learned after Faith’s funeral, there’s always a _worse_.

She’d been able to feel it, the shift between her and Jamie. Claire knew it was only a matter of time before he told her to go. To his credit, he never said _that_ , exactly.

_Your best wasna good enough._

When he said it she’d known he was right; the rest of the fight ( _could she even call it that?_ ) was a blur to her, registering his words and letting them settle on her heart. After getting on the plane back home, she’d cried ( _her poor seatmate_ ) until the flight attendant brought whisky minis and an extra pillow. Sleep for the duration of the flight was fitful, but once she was home she’d collapsed in bed and hadn’t moved for twelve hours. The harsh light of day only served to bring into focus what she couldn’t do anymore: treat terminally ill children. Not until Faith died in her arms did Claire realize how many devastating moments she had already been witness to, and couldn’t bear the idea of going through _more_. She hadn’t stopped second-guessing herself, wondering if she’d done the right thing, if the treatment had been the right course. For an entire day, she’d pored over Faith’s chart and all of her medical records; it did nothing to help, nothing to ease Claire’s mind. She should have recommended surgery or donor stem-cells; anything but what she’d done.

The doubt hadn’t left by the time she returned to work and she knew the second she stepped foot in her office that this branch of medicine wasn’t something she could physically _do_ anymore. That was the day she spoke to her direct superior and decided to take a leave of absence at the hospital, knowing upon her return ( _if she returned_ ) it wouldn’t be to that wing. All of her current patients and courses of treatment were explained and passed on to the only doctor she knew would give the same level of care - Joe Abernathy. He was a good man, and as they’d hugged, he’d kissed the side of her head, knowing ( _even if he didn’t_ know) this last death had done a number on her. With one more sweep of her office, Claire’d left, gone home, and hadn’t returned. She’d always been good with money; it was the one thing her Uncle Lamb had never worried over in regards to her well-being. She had the rest of Lamb’s money to live on for a while, everything she’d inherited when he died, along with Frank’s life insurance money. All she’d done with the latter was pay for the funeral, everything else has been in a savings account, waiting for the day it could be put to good use.

June was spent doing as little as possible, not letting herself drink anymore but not doing much else in the self-care department. Tears seemed to turn on like a switch being flipped; dinner one night was pizza ordered in, and all it’d done was make her sob for two hours before going to bed without eating a single slice.

In July, she decided she wasn’t ready, that going to work wasn’t something she could stomach yet, and so she’d turned in her phone, the phone that technically belonged to the hospital. When she’d finally made the decision to replace it she was asked if all of her contacts should be imported to her new device, if her photos should be. With hesitation, she’d finally said yes to keeping everything; photos of Faith and Jamie. Jamie’s number. She’d kept it all even though looking at the pictures did nothing but hurt.

Finally, in August, Claire knew she couldn’t avoid making an income again, and so she’d applied for and accepted a job as a general practitioner in a pediatrician’s office. Sore throats and objects stuffed in noses, healthy babies at normal checkups, that’s what she could handle. It worked out, it eased her mind, and slowly she fell into a routine again that was hardly living. She existed in the world, and it would have to be enough. She wasn’t making decisions anyone put all of their hope into, she didn’t have to watch anyone suffer because she did something wrong. Weeks passed; she went to work, saw her patients, and went home. Forgiving herself was slow going, but eventually, the pressure in her chest eased just a little.

And then Jamie called.

It was early on an October morning; Fridays the doctor’s office was closed, so she was home when his name flashed on her caller ID. _Jesus H. Christ._ Mostly, she’d listened after she picked up. His words registered, that he didn’t truly blame her, but the way he’d looked at her when he said it--he’d meant it then. Maybe he didn’t believe it anymore, but he had _then_. She heard him say she hadn’t let him down around the same time she’d started to cry. He promised to call again, and he had. He’d called the next day, then the next. Sometimes they didn’t say much, just sat on the line with static between them. Other times they spoke in circles around Faith, not saying her name, but remembering.

By the time December rolls around, they’ve spoken every single night since late October, never missing, even if the conversations are short. They FaceTime every now and again, and when her phone rings today, she can see it’s for video. Looking at herself in her phone camera she groans at hair that’s a mess piled on top of her head, the reading glasses she’s wearing and the ratty t-shirt with holes she has on. He’s caught her cleaning, but still, she accepts the call.

“Good morning,” she greets him, holding the phone out. She has to puzzle out what’s filling the screen on his end, tilting her head from side to side before giving up. “What am I looking at?”

Jamie’s face finally comes into view and he sits back. She recognizes the room he’s in, the library at Lallybroch with all of its old books and secrets. “Afternoon, technically,” he corrects for his own time zone. Then, he shows her the book she’d had an extreme close-up of. “I’ve been going through the books, trying to make some sort of catalog so we know what we have,” he explains. “And this one, well. I thought perhaps ye might like it as a gift.”

She can see the author is e.e. cummings and raises an eyebrow. “A gift for me, really?”

“Aye. Because it’s an original edition.”

That gets her full attention, and Claire frowns in disbelief. “Jamie, why would you give that to me? You should keep it. That has to be valuable, or at least mean something to your family.”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat. “I thought that, until I started to read and--” he pauses, looking down at the book in his hand now, swallowing.

“What, Jamie?”

There’s quiet for a few beats before his gaze meets the camera again. “I started to read it and everything reminded me of ye. So, I thought the book should belong to you instead.”

A lump feels lodged in her throat and when she finds her words again, they’re quietly spoken. “Which poems?”

“Och, Christ, dinna ask me that,” he says in a rare show of, well. Not quite embarrassment, even though his cheeks do turn a little pink.

“I can’t take something from your home without knowing.”

There’s a long pause before finally, he opens the book and simply begins to read. She doesn’t recognize the words, but his voice and soothing lilt make her heart, for the first time in months, unclench a bit.

“ _My blood approves and kisses are a better fate than wisdom. Lady, I swear by all the flowers. Don’t cry--the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids’ flutter which says we are for each other. Then laugh, leaning back in my arms. For life’s not a paragraph. And death, I think, is no parenthesis._ ”

By the time he finishes there are tears threatening to fall from her eyes, and she takes a deep breath, sniffling and brushing any moisture away. “Reminded you of me?” she reiterates.

“I want ye to have it. And perhaps ye could come get it.”

She isn’t sure of what he said, still too wrapped up in the poem. When it registers, she furrows her forehead. “Come and get it?”

Jamie clears his throat, quiet as he waits for it to sink it.

When it does, Claire’s eyes go wide. The last time she’d been to Scotland it changed everything she thought she knew about her life. “You want me to come there?”

“Aye, I do. But if ye canna do it, if I ruined it, if I...what I’m trying to say, Sassenach, is that I dinna want ye to be alone for Christmas. Everyone here would be glad to see ye.”

“You...you would be glad to see me?”

Jamie nods, his gaze intent. “I shouldn’t have let ye leave the first time.”

He’s apologized so many times, tried to make it right, what he’d said, what he’d done. She believes him now when he says she did her best, when he tells her that he knows there was nothing else she could have done. It doesn’t inspire her to pick up where she left off, though. She’s happier now, content to answer the questions of first-time parents and assure them they’re doing just fine. Still, even with forgiveness, she never thought Jamie would ask her back to Scotland, that they would ever share the same space again. She hears herself saying she’ll come, though as she lays in bed that night after purchasing a plane ticket, she can’t quite believe it.

She’d tried, a little more than a year ago now, to wrap her mind around her feelings for Jamie; the attraction was there, no doubt. Now as she lays in bed, she wonders if they fell into one another because he was sad and she took advantage of him as he sought some sort of anchor. If she hadn’t done exactly that, then was Faith the only link between them? Without her, and with her death leaving such a large hole in both of them, would there be anything left with Jamie to salvage? This trip, she knows, will give them both the answer either way.

When she arrives and makes it down to baggage claim she sees him right away; he’s hard to miss, giant that he is. Making her way to him, there’s a moment of not being sure whether or not to hug him before his arms wrap fully around her.

It’s the best she’s felt since February.

“It’s good to see ye, Claire. In person, I mean.”

When he pulls back she immediately feels bereft, but there’s a small smile playing on her lips. “It’s good to see you, Jamie. You look well.”

He walks with her to get her bag, turning his gaze to her. “Speaking of looking well. Were those _glasses_ in the video last we spoke?”

Grabbing her suitcase, she raises an eyebrow. “They were. For reading. I had to bite that particular bullet in September.”

“I havena seen ye wearing them before,” he says, wracking his brain and going through every FaceTime conversation they’ve had since October.

“I never happened to be wearing them. The other day I was cleaning, going through bills and organizing paperwork.”

“Ye should do more paperwork when I call,” he teases lightly, taking her bag from her to carry.

He liked her glasses, and Claire ducks her head a little as she walks behind him a bit, letting him lead the way to his car. It’s still there, she thinks. Whatever it was, the embers are still warm. She remembers how he made her feel, what the guilt was like when he’d told her it was her fault and hers alone that Faith was gone. It doesn’t go away with smiles and conversation, but he is trying to fix it. Day by day, he tries to add another suture to the wound he made. She knows he’s trying, knows he sees a therapist twice a week. He’s _trying_ , and rather than shut him out, her heart tells her not to give up on Jamie.

At Lallybroch, that same sense of family she felt the first time she ever stepped inside envelops her now. It makes her feel connected to _something_ , close to people who’d treated her like family. Instead of Jenny needing to warm up to her, Jamie’s sister greets her like an old friend with a hug, Ian replicating the gesture. The children dogpile her as well; even young Michael who was so small back in May offers her grins and lets her hold him on her hip as they walk to the living room. Claire hadn’t been sure what to expect; everyone still in mourning, maybe because she felt that way for a long while. But there are so many smiles and so much lightness that a peace she’s never been able to find on her own settles against her like a blanket.

This is what healing with family does, and she suddenly, desperately, never wants to let it go.

Instead of staying in Jamie’s room, this time she has her own, and she crashes almost immediately, sleeping through until breakfast the next day. She lets the chatter of family around a table wash over her, and on a walk with Jamie afterward, confesses to him she’s never had _that_.

Somewhere between the house and the stables, Jamie stops walking, turning to look at her fully before lowering his head. Tentatively, his hand reaches out, index finger hooking around hers. “I ken ye’ve been alone for a verra long time, Claire. I’ve been waiting to say this, was hoping to do it face to face, but…” When he looks at her again, meets her eyes, his own look like a raging sea. “I left ye to go toe-to-toe wi’ the grief alone. I pushed ye away and sent ye home to nothing. That ye found your way out of the dark anyway is a miracle. It took Jenny and Ian both to get me there. So it leaves me to believe one thing about ye.” Raising her hand, he kisses her knuckles before finally letting her go. “You’re stronger than I am, Sassenach.”

There’s a lump in her throat that she can’t quite swallow, and she shakes her head, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m still in the dark, Jamie. Or at least the shadows. I don’t know anymore.”

“And that’s my fault,” he tells her; not a question. An acceptance. “I’m no’ sure why you're even bothering to give me the time of day, truth be told. I never expected ye to answer the phone when I called, or to keep doing so after the first time we spoke. I can never do or say enough to make what I said right.”

“I changed my entire life because of what you said to me, Jamie.”

“Claire, I--”

“No. No, I need to say this. I need to talk now.” She has no idea where that comes from, but he respects it, and once he nods for her to continue, Claire clears her throat. “I changed my life. I couldn’t stop second-guessing myself, I couldn’t...stop questioning every decision I was making about treatment plans, which meant I couldn’t do my job. And that was your fault.”

His head bows but he doesn’t interrupt.

“It was also your fault that I started thinking about all of the times I might have to go through this again. In my job, the ideal, obviously, is to beat cancer, and I have before. I know I would have again. But one more loss like that...I don’t think I could do it. I don’t think I could go through it and make it to the other side a second time. So, it’s your fault I realized I need to do something different. I need to see the joys of life through a child, not fear and pain and sadness.”

Jamie steps forward when Claire stops speaking, tentatively reaching up to stroke her cheek with his thumb. It’s a light touch, hovering almost. “I hurt ye. And no matter what revelations came of it, that will no’ change. I would spend the rest of my life making it up to ye if I could. If ye’d let me.”

Claire looks at up him, bringing a hand to rest over his that’s still tucked close to her face. “Faith brought us together, Jamie.”

“Aye,” he whispers, slowly moving until his forehead can press against Claire’s. “I will no’ let her be the reason we’re apart. Stay in Scotland. Stay for a while until the darkness is gone and there are no more shadows.”

For a moment her eyes close and all she can do is breathe him in. But she feels herself nodding, nose grazing his.

“Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Through the darkness to the dawn_  
>  _And when I looked back, you were gone._  
>  _Heard your voice leading me on_  
>  _Through the darkness to the dawn._  
>  _Love is deep as the road is long_  
>  _And it moves my feet to carry on._  
>  _It beats my heart when you are gone._   
> _Love is deep as the road is long._


	17. January 2017 (Part III)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part three begins with a move. And food.

It doesn’t take long to find an apartment close to Lallybroch, which means it’s about fifteen minutes away, but not so far that going back and forth is a chore. The worst part about the move was finally having no choice but to sort through all of Frank’s things she’d never gotten around to throwing away or donating. It was his clothing, mostly; when he’d first died she could press her face against the lapel of his coat and smell the lingering scent of pipe tobacco. It was comforting then - she hadn’t been able to say goodbye to him, the loss was sudden and he’d been gone hours by the time she was notified. As she’d stood in his closet and looked at the clothes, there’d been a quiet ache in her chest before remembering why she needed to finally give it all away.

Jamie was waiting for her.

The idea to stay only for a while turned into moving completely the day she’d returned to the States. The last thing she’d been expecting was an office relocation to a different city, far enough that she would need to move. It’d taken sitting with Jamie on the phone for hours to well and truly come to a decision. By the time two in the morning rolled around, she’d made her choice; her job in medicine was, well. A job. But the passion she’d felt for doctoring was quieter now - still there, but not nearly as urgent. She could treat people anywhere in the world if she wanted to eventually, so the idea of leaving her profession behind ( _at least for a little while_ ) hadn’t seemed as daunting as it could have.

Now that she’s here, standing in her new living room among all of the boxes, she’s starting to feel somewhat overwhelmed. Trying to figure out a place to start, she opens a box and instantly her heart constricts in her chest. On top, with some other kitchen things, is a picture Faith drew what feels like an entire lifetime ago. Claire, Faith, and Jamie, little blue stick figures under a smiling sun. Putting it aside with reverence ( _along with a few other drawings_ ), she decides to get frames for them, worthy of more than a magnet on the fridge. Digging out the rest of her things, she puts together the kitchen, wondering if she should cook something for supper in her new space when there’s a knock on the door. Only one person would drop by unannounced in all of Scotland, so she’s smiling when she tugs the door open to find Jamie standing there, Chinese take-out in one hand, wine bottle in the other.

“Hungry, Sassenach?”

Claire gives him a lopsided smile, stepping aside to let him in. “A little. Chinese food hadn’t crossed my mind.”

Jamie walks inside, puts his bounty on the kitchen counter and shrugs. “I thought I should make sure ye ken where to get the best take-away.”

Looking at the branding on the plastic bag, she raises an eyebrow. “A place called ‘Lucky Bowl’ is it?”

“Aye, I brought ye noodles with vegetables and such.” Holding the bag open, he shows her the various cartons, obviously more than _just_ noodles.

When her stomach rumbles loudly at the aroma and prospect of being fed, she smirks, going for plates. “Mind reader, are you? I was just trying to decide what to do for supper. Thank you.” Leading the way to the kitchen, weaving around boxes, she clears space on the counter. “Smells appetizing so far.” Handing Jamie a corkscrew, a hand presses to her forehead. “Alright, plates and paper towels I have. Wineglasses are...somewhere in a box.”

“I’m certainly no’ opposed to drinking straight from the bottle. Unless that’s a wee bit too unsanitary for ye,” he teases.

She’s kissed him with her tongue so far down his throat that she’s positive concerns over germs won’t be an issue.

A few minutes later, they’re settled on the floor, sitting cross-legged beside one another and surrounded by boxes in various stages of being unpacked. They talk, about everything and nothing somehow at the same time, but it’s not until she’s polished off the noodles ( _as he’s finishing off a fourth eggroll_ ) that she wipes at her mouth and takes a long sip of wine before speaking.

“I’ve been thinking a lot, about what I want to do. Who I want to be now,” she begins, wetting her lips. “Do I want to be the Claire Randall from Boston who worked tirelessly to build a career, or do I want to be who I was before that? Plain Claire Beauchamp and nothing more?”

Silence lapses between them for a few moments before Jamie puts his chopsticks down, pushing his plate aside to look at her. “First, I reckon ye’ve never in your life been _nothing_ or plain. Second, if ye still have doubts because of me…”

Claire stops him, reaching out to press a hand to his knee. “Not this time, Jamie,” she promises. “I know I can do the work. I know on some level, even, I enjoy helping patients when the outcome is simple. Easy.” Quick solutions; prescriptions for antibiotics to clear up an infection, simple tools to pull objects out of little ears and noses. She’s never minded that part so much. “But you never know. Something little could turn into more, and then I’d be right back in that moment.” She can’t. She doesn’t know if there will ever be a time when she can watch another child suffer. “I’ve spent too much of my life already beating back grief. I think I’m…I’m too tired to do that anymore, Jamie.” Maybe one day, but not now. Not this soon.

Tentatively, Jamie’s hand reaches out so that his fingers can rest in her palm, feeling his body relax the moment she readjusts so that her own fingers can lace through his.

“Sassenach, I need to say this one more time. And this time I need to get what I have to say completely out.” His Adam’s apple bobs, hand squeezing around hers before speaking. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything that I said. I’m sorry that I caused ye pain so deep ye disappeared for a little while and could no’ find yerself. I’m sorry that I made ye think ye were anythin’ less than incredible at what ye do. Christ, I’m sorry for makin’ ye weep. I’m sorry for no’ acknowledging ye were just as hurt. This isna any good excuse, but the pain felt so…” Jamie trails off, wetting his lips. “I felt as though I was split in two and the other half of me was in the ground.”

“Jamie…” Claire whispers his name, turning to face him fully now and reaching out, pushing curls behind his ears only to have them spring back out around his face. “I understand. And you’re right, it isn’t an excuse, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t valid. How you felt, how you’re still feeling, it’s difficult to deal with. Grief is numbing and overwhelming. It makes you blind to other people’s feelings sometimes. It hurt, I won’t lie to you. But I never thought they were things you thought and felt before she…” _Before_. Claire can’t say it.

For a moment, the two of them look at one another, her fingers still resting lightly against his cheek. 

“Still, Sassenach. I’m so verra...verra sorry,” he whispers, voice breaking just a bit. “Can ye ever forgive me for it?”

Claire’s forehead presses to his softly and her eyes close, nose nuzzling along the length of his. “I told you before, and I still mean it. You’re forgiven.”

For a moment, her words hang in the air before he pulls back, just a little, leans in, then pulls away again, too much doubt keeping him from doing what he truly wants.

“Jamie?” Her voice is quiet, touched with a hint of concern as the hand not cradling one side of his face rests on his leg.

Swallowing hard, Jamie lets out a heavy breath of air. “Claire, I would...I would verra much like to kiss ye,” he whispers, eyes meeting hers. He hasn’t tried, hasn’t asked, hasn’t professed anything more than simply wanting to make amends before now.

Her eyes widen a little in shock, not that he would ask, but that he still wants to.

“May I?”

Christ, he’s so earnest, and Claire feels her own breath hitch at the way he asks, at the way he cares to do so in the first place. Managing a watery smile, she nods at him. “Yes.” By the time he leans in, her cheeks feel so heavy from smiling that she has to stop once he’s close enough to share the same air with her. When she can feel the ghost of his lips, he seems to hesitate, and the hand on his cheek slides down to his neck in encouragement.

“It feels as though I have no’ done this in a verra long time,” he whispers, nose grazing the side of hers.

A single tear falls down her cheek before closing the distance between them both and pressing her lips lightly against his. It’s a slow kiss, soft and tender as they find themselves again in one another. Even with the hurt from months ago, the grief and aching, she never stopped feeling for him. When she pulls back, just a bit, he stays close and presses his forehead to hers, eyes still closed.

“I still dream of ye, Sassenach,” he murmurs, covering her hand with his own. “Ye’d come to me, during moments of grief so consuming I thought I must die from the hurt. Ye soothed me wi’ your words and yer smile, but…” His thumb moves over the back of her hand lightly. “Ye never touched me.”

Another tear slips down her cheek. “I can touch you now.”

Leaning forward, he captures her lips once more, kissing her deeper, with a bit more heat behind it. This time when she breaks from him she pulls back enough to see his eyes. Thinking back, to the book of poems he gifted her, one of Claire’s hands takes his, covering it and pressing it to her chest.

“I carry your heart with me,” she whispers, nuzzling his nose again, closing her eyes.

She can feel his smile against her cheek, their tears falling together.

“I carry it in my heart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New mood board by @smashingteacups over on tumblr!


	18. February 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie and Claire take another step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to get smutty, folks. This is the chapter that gives us a rating change for the story!

“I’m going to take this job,” Claire informs Jamie, sitting on her bed, glasses on, laptop in hand. He’s been putting together her most recent purchase, a table she can put her TV and cable box on top of.

“Which one? The clinic job?” he asks her, pausing to drill before glancing back at her.

“No, not that one.”

“The pediatrician’s office?”

“No,” she says, wetting her lips and looking over the email in her inbox. She’s nervous and isn’t sure why; it’s just Jamie, but what she wants to do is such a divergence from the career she’s had—the career she went to school for, went into debt to pursue. The hesitation shows on her face, and she knows it when Jamie puts down his tools and sits beside her, reaching out to tilt her face up by the chin.

“What is it, then?” She has to know, he hopes, that whatever she wants to do, he’ll support. Even if, for a while, what she wants to do is nothing but settle into life in Scotland.

“It’s the botanical gardens. In Inverness. It’s a position that would have me working outdoors, mostly, taking care of the plants, doing research.” As she speaks, she feels herself talking faster to keep him from telling her it’s a terrible idea. “It has firm, set hours, the pay is decent enough, and there’s room to work my way up if I wanted. It’s low pressure and I’ve always loved botany, so—”

She doesn’t get much more out before Jamie’s lips silence her, kissing her softly as his thumb moves over the apple of her cheek. “Sassenach,” he murmurs as he pulls back. “You dinna need to justify it to me. If that’s what ye want to do and something ye enjoy, then it’s what ye should do. Was it already offered?”

Claire bites at her bottom lip a little, holding back a smile as she nods. “It was. I could start next Monday.”

Jamie kisses her again, trying to keep her from worrying that bottom lip too hard. “Take it. Email them back and take the job.”

“You really think so?”

When she looks at him, it’s with eyes blown so wide with possibility that he can’t help but stare for a few moments. She’s perfect exactly like this, and he wonders if she knows it, if she knows he’s helpless when she turns her gaze on him. She could command him with a single look and she doesn’t even know it.

“Aye, Sassenach. Take it.” He seals his words with a kiss before getting back to the building.

The first night she gets off of work, mentally exhausted from all of the training, she’s prepared to walk home when she sees Jamie waiting outside, bundled warmly and sitting on a bench waiting on her. His bookshop isn’t far, an easy walk from there to the gardens and from the gardens to her apartment. So close that he spends more time at her place than back at Lallybroch, but that isn’t a bad thing. When he’s there the next night, and the next, she begins looking forward to walking out, to seeing his face every time she does. He’s always there, waiting, and it always makes her belly warm. 

Two weeks into her job, she walks out with someone beside her, a new friend, the two of them talking and laughing before stopping in front of Jamie.

“Is _this_ yer fella then, Claire? I canna blame ye for leaving the States if so. Look at him, a tall drink of water and an arse ye could bounce a coin off of!”

“Gillian!” Claire huffs, cheeks burning red as she sneaks a peek at Jamie. At least he’s trying to hold back a laugh. “Jamie, this is my co-worker and new friend, Gillian, though the ‘friend’ part is now on the line.”

“Och, Claire, I only agree wi’ everything ye’ve said, he’s no’ bad to look at at all.”

Jamie reaches out, shaking the young woman’s hand. “Pleasure to meet ye. I’ll be interested in what else Claire’s said about me.”

“Only that yer coc—”

“Your _cooking_ is incredible,” Claire says quickly. “We’d better go, Jamie. Gil, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Oh, aye, tomorrow lass. Have fun wi’ yer large laddie.”

Once Jamie bids her goodnight and he and Claire begin to walk away, he looks over. “My _cooking_?”

“We haven’t even...she, I have no way of--Christ.”

He doesn’t mean to laugh, but Claire flustered and unable to find her words is too much, and he pulls her hand up to kiss her knuckles. “A trouble maker then, aye?”

“Oh, _aye_. I’ve never met anyone like her before, just blurting out whatever she’s thinking. I haven’t said anything about your...cooking or anything else.”

“Suppose ye’d have to ken what you’re talking about before ye could say anythin’ anyway,” Jamie says with a bit of a shrug.

Out of context it’s such an innocent statement, but knowing what they’re alluding to makes her skin flush pink and her mouth go dry. “I suppose that’s true,” she finally says as nonchalantly as possible while they walk to a nearby fish and chips shop. It isn’t until they’ve paid for food and sit across from one another than she brings it up again, adding malt vinegar to her chips. “Is it something you’d want me to talk about?”

Taking a bite out of his fish ( _not bothering with utensils_ ), Jamie can’t deny there are nights his thoughts are filled with nothing _but_ her, the way she’d look spread beneath him, flushed and panting, wanting him. He plays it as cool as he can, licking his thumb. “Only if ye have good things to say. Then I suppose…”

“Of course to say anything we’d have to do...something.” Her eyes meet his and as soon as she realizes the blue of his eyes has turned dark and wanting, her heart turns over in her chest. “Do you want me, Jamie?” she asks quietly, voice low enough that she’s not asking the question to the shop at large.

“Christ, yes, I want ye. I want ye so badly I burn wi’ it. Do ye no’ ken that?”

She’s having a hard time forming words, but she does manage after taking a sip of her water. “Truthfully, I wasn’t sure. I knew, in Boston, I think.” But then he’d blamed her, pushed her away, and didn’t speak to her for months.

Pushing both of their baskets of food to the side, Jamie takes her hands across the table to look at her. “Claire Randall, I want you. I made a mess of this once and let ye go, but I will no’ do it again. If that’s no’ clear tell me what to do to prove it, and I will.”

Staring at him, Claire holds onto his hands tightly, waiting for her self-doubt to come just as it always does. But when it doesn’t, she nods, sure of herself.

“Take me home, Jamie. Take me home and show me.”

She can’t say she minds it much when he tugs her up, leaving their food on the table as they simply walk out and head back to her apartment. The chill in the air does nothing for the heat the pair of them are generating as they walk, fingers firmly laced together until she wordlessly hands her keys to him and lets him unlock the front door. Coats and boots are removed right in the entranceway before she finally pauses to look up at him.

“Nothing’s changed from the shop to home?”

His hands cradle each side of her face when he speaks. “I swear, Sassenach, for as long as I live, I’ll never make ye doubt how I feel about ye again. _Ever_.”

With that promise lingering between them, Claire takes his hand, leads him to her bedroom. He stays with her, has almost every night since she arrived back, but they still haven’t crossed that last bridge. She’s wanted him, God knows she has, but wanting and being ready have been two separate things.

Until now.

Standing across from him at the foot of her bed, she reaches out and puts her hands at his waist, at the hem of the long-sleeved shirt he’s wearing. “Jamie, I do want you. Very much,” she whispers, eyes on his.

“Ye have me, Claire.”

Pulling his shirt off, it drops to the floor as her lips find his, kissing him tentatively at first and then full of want and need. They aren't timid kisses, not when both of them know what the other wants. That doesn’t mean she has no hesitation, and she clears her throat, forcing herself to slow down.

“Jamie, I haven’t done this since Frank…” She looks down, but he doesn’t let her stay that way for long.

“I havena either,” he breathes out. “No’ since Anna.”

At that, she looks back at him, the silence stretching until he reaches out to lightly let his fingers drag from the long curve of her neck to the collar of her shirt, skirting just beneath to touch her collar bone. His eyes are on hers as his hands drag slowly down, never once breaking eye-contact with her. To be sure, she knows, but the heat in his eyes does nothing to keep her from wanting him, from knowing she does. She can feel the heat radiating from his fingertips to her skin, and once the shirt is up and off, she wets her lips.

“Yer trembling,” he says quietly, her bra still on as his right-hand presses to her chest. It makes his breath catch, the smooth skin of her right there, under his fingertips.

“I suppose I am. I’m nervous,” she admits.

“Afraid?” he asks, fingers reaching back to unhook her bra, but she shakes her head.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Claire breathes out, fingers moving to his jeans to unzip and unbuckle, to push down before capturing his lips in a searing kiss, fingers curling into his hair.

He allows it, then does the same to her until they’re both naked, standing in front of one another. “Perhaps it would be easier if we touched first,” he suggests, voice low. _That_ he’s done. God, to touch her; he’s had dreams about the slickness of her against his hand the one time he had the chance to do it. His fingers lace with hers now, briefly, before they separate for their palms to touch.

She watches him, feels the drag of his fingers along the lines of her hand and looks up to meet his eyes. “I want to look at you,” Claire requests, her voice shaking with anticipation now. After a minute nod from him, she steps back just enough to see his entire body.

Gillian was certainly on the money with her nearly lewd assessment earlier.

Slowly, her fingers drag across his chest, down until she just barely touches the coarse curls on his pelvis. Then she walks slowly around him, letting her fingers drag lightly across the curve of his hip; she looks up at his back, marred by so many scars that it’s hard to tell where one ends and another begins. A glance down and she can see his fist tighten as his cock twitches, his breathing controlled and even. Slowly she moves, fingers trailing across his backside, lips kissing his shoulder before standing in front of him again.

His eyes are dark, no color, only blue so intense it looks black. “Fair’s fair. I want to look at ye,” he breathes out, lips pressing to her neck now. Stepping back, he does the same to her but takes longer to appraise.

He takes so long that an arm moves over her chest loosely to cover herself. “Will you bloody do something?” she asks, swallowing hard as her head turns toward the side.

Jamie manages not to laugh at her words, as if she doesn’t know she’s a living sculpture in front of him, the perfect muse for someone crafting a goddess out of marble. “Christ, Claire. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” His hand gently reaches out to push her arm down before the other reaches out to cup a breast in his hand. Adam’s apple bobbing, he lets a thumb slowly glide over a nipple, watching it pebble with fascination.

Breath going shallow, she watches his face as his fingers move down the center of her chest slowly, shivering when he’s over her stomach before involuntarily moving closer to him, body swaying to a tuneless song of need.

“The first time I kissed ye, Claire, you looked… _sae_ bonny standing there, so small. I kent it then, that I wanted ye. I couldna think of anything other than when I could have ye alone, naked. Lying next to me.”

Claire lets her body relax against his, breasts pressing to his chest, the warmth of both their bodies fusing into one solid burning flame. Slowly, like a gentle dance, her fingers move up his sides and across his shoulders, lips brushing over his, a ghost of a kiss. “Do you want me now?”

The words are just barely uttered from her lips before his response. “Oh, God, yes.”

There’s no more room for speaking as he lifts her, mouth crushing to hers as her legs wind around his hips. Slowly, without moving his mouth from hers, Jamie walks them backward toward the bed and lays her down, moving over her to pepper her face with soft kisses. He begins at her forehead, then kisses her closed eyes before moving down the bridge of her nose, across her cheeks, and then her lips. His kiss is urgent, full of want and need and heat as her legs keep him flush against her. With a groan, he rocks against her, his want for her obvious. Every shuddering exhale against him has his lips moving a different place, feverishly along her neck, down her chest and around the soft curve of a breast. Her own hips rock in time to his, every movement growing needier until she makes a keening noise in the back of her throat.

She knows herself, her own body, and pushes at his shoulder until he can see her face. “I want you, Jamie. I want you now.” Her words sound desperate to her own ears but there’s no time to dwell on it as he raises himself. God, she wants him, and with the first thrust of his hips she cries out, body arching up and into his, fingers clutching at his shoulders. There’s no immediate feeling of satisfaction, only a craving for _more_ ; more of him, to feel full and filled by this man she loves.

Christ, she loves him.

Fingers raking up his back and into his hair, every moan sent up to the heavens is a confirmation; she’s his, just as he is hers. She feels as though she’s burning for him, fingernails digging into his scalp before crying out, shattering around him so quickly that she can’t warn him, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but _feel_. He doesn’t stop; she thinks she pleads with him to move faster, move harder, and then he is, hands planted on either side of her head. She can feel every part of him against her and shivers at the groan that falls freely from his lips. Now, her hands rest on his back, eyes open as she feels a tear slide back into her hair, but she’s happy. _God_ , she’s happy, and as his breathing goes ragged, her face presses against his neck. How the pleasure is winding again so quickly she isn’t sure, but she can feel it, low in her belly until his hands hike her hips up higher so that he can sink deeper. The sound she makes is foreign to her own ears as she comes around him again, body taut as a bow waiting for release.

“Oh, God, Oh _Claire_.” His words have a halting stop and start to them as he gasps, thrusting harder, deeper. Head bowing, his mouth seeks hers, landing on her cheek before finally catching her mouth. It isn’t a deep kiss, he can’t manage, and then his hips stutter out of rhythm, thrusting once, then twice more before spilling into her.

Nothing but the ragged panting of them fills the room for a long while, until he moves to her side rather than crush her. With one trembling hand, he drags his fingers over her arm and slowly down her side as she shifts to face him. Eventually, her lips find his to kiss him deeply, both of them flushed, skin dewy with sweat. Neither of them speak, not wanting to break the spell between them. She isn’t sure if she drifts or not, but when her eyes open again, his fingers are moving along her chest and he finally speaks quietly.

“Your breasts are like ivory,” he murmurs.”Christ, to touch ye, Sassenach.” He pauses to kiss her softly before his hand continues its journey. “You, wi’ your skin like white velvet and the sweet long lines of your body, _God_. I couldna look at ye and keep my hands from you. Couldna be near and not want ye.”

She smiles and curls into him as his fingers dance against her inner thigh. Her lips press to his shoulder with a soft smile. “I’m sorry I made you wait so long.” She says it with the smile still on her lips, though it fades when he seems to grow serious. “What is it?”

“Ye didna _make_ me wait. I ken I had to earn your trust again. Your affection.”

Claire leans in, kissing his lips now softly. ”Consider it earned,” she murmurs.

“I’m grateful for that,” he breathes out before moving onto his back, tugging her over him. “I dinna mean to...question what we just did, seeing as how I would verra much like to do it again. But I didna use a condom and ye didna stop me to get one. I should have thought, should have stopped—”

Gently, Claire cuts him off with her fingers against his lips, shaking her head. She knows he hasn’t been with anyone, knows he’s clean, that wasn’t ever a question. But it’s about more than that, and she knows it. “I can’t,” she says softly.

“...Can’t?”

“Get pregnant.”

For a moment he stops, pausing to look at her. He lost someone he loved in childbirth, he’s lost a child now. He hadn’t thought about the possibility of it before, of having more children. It only takes a second to know it doesn’t matter. He can’t lose her the way he lost Anna. “Then I ken I dinna have to be afraid,” he admits, meeting her eyes. But there’s something else there, and his thumb moves to her chin. “What happened?”

Sitting up, she tugs the sheet with her and swallows. “I was in the accident. With my parents,” she reveals, picking at an invisible thread. The car was so...it was so caved in, Jamie. I don’t remember if I was...upside down or right side up but something was heavy on top of me, crushing me. I’ve never been able to remember what the doctors must have said to my Uncle at the hospital. It wasn’t until I had my first true physical that I found out. The scar tissue, the damage, it was too much,” she explains, blinking quickly at the threat of tears. “To be told, so young, that I could never have a child, I…” She clears her throat and doesn’t hesitate to press her face against his chest as soon as his arms envelop her.

“Shhh, _mo chridhe_ ,” he murmurs softly. “Dinna weep for it. If it comes to it, if ye ever want a child, there are other ways.”

“We don’t...have to rush it,” she whispers, reaching out to brush her fingers through his curls. Even if she does want a child eventually, she wants too badly to have him alone, to get lost in him as long as she can before changing their lives again. “I came here for _you_ , Jamie. You’re all I’ll ever need.”

Capturing her lips in a slow kiss, Jamie gathers her as close as he can until she’s practically on top of him. “Ye have me now,” he murmurs.

Claire’s aware this time that she must doze off, warm and content, because when she wakes he’s asleep, both of them on their sides and facing one another. Scooting her body closer, one leg hooks over his hip, fingers reaching out to brush at the curls falling across his forehead. Lightly, she touches his face, gently memorizing the shape of him under her fingertips.

Without opening his eyes, Jamie’s head ducks to find her lips, one hand moving down to her lower back, pressing her closer until slowly their hips rock together. Forehead pressing to his, her eyes close as well, getting lost in sensation until she can reach between them and guide him back into her body. They move together, slow and deliberate, a contrast to the fast and urgent pace from before. Hands wander and lips touch, noses nuzzling into one another. This time when they fall into one another it’s quiet and unhurried, a quiet pleasure between them both, as if their souls have been twined for centuries and their bodies are only now catching up.

In the quiet after, before closing her eyes, Claire does speak, fingertips lightly resting at the pulse in his neck. “I love you, you know,” she whispers.

His smile makes every feature he has go soft before his mouth claims hers in a slow, deep kiss that has his tongue wandering along hers. Finally, he pulls back enough to speak, whispering the words across her chest, over her heart.

“I love ye wi’ every part of me, Claire. I love ye wi’ everything I am.”

It’s the first time she knows, with no more doubt, that she’s _home_.

She never questions it again.


	19. March 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One year later.

The closer the anniversary of Faith’s death gets, the quieter Jamie becomes. He doesn’t withdraw, not completely, but ups his therapy appointments temporarily, tries to stave off the inevitable all-encompassing pain and sorrow. It’s Dr. Cho who attempts to impart at least a small bit of wisdom before the day actually arrives.

_You grieved apart from the person you needed to be with. Now, you may grieve together._

It’s what they need. It’s what they both need. He’s usually a man of words that come easy to him, but what are the words when you grieve a death so big it leaves a gaping chasm where a heart used to be? Claire’s made him feel as though he’s living again, but it’s been easy to get lost in the ache of losing a part of himself forever. Still, he can’t and won’t repeat his mistakes; he can tell Claire’s being wary, being careful, as if he’s a live wire the entire week before, and he realizes they can’t go on like that. She has grief too, and she was alone with it for so long.

In the morning when he wakes, it’s in her bed. He’d thought about going home, being with Jenny and Ian and the kids, but it would have been too much. His sister constantly trying to help by telling sweet stories of Faith isn’t something he could face sitting through, so he’d told them that for now ( _and even for as much as he loves his sister and Ian, the bairns_ ) he needed to be with Claire. Looking over, he watches her sleep, face soft and relaxed. Reaching out, his fingers trail over her cheek as he speaks quietly. “Ye deserve better than me.” He’d broken her, almost beyond repair; accidentally to be sure, and he’s working on putting her together again, piece by piece, but there are still bits laying at his feet. She didn’t deserve what he put her through, and yet here she is, loving him.

She stirs under his touch, inhaling and letting the breath out softly before her eyes slowly open and her gaze lands on him. When she speaks, her voice is still low and hazy from sleep.

“Don’t tell me what I deserve,” she murmurs, covering his hand with her own on the side of her face.

“How can ye still love me?” Already his emotions are running high, already he wants to weep in her arms.

Claire sits up, tugging the sheet around her chest and looking right at him. “Because you were hurting and angry.”

“Grief doesna give me a free pass to be an arsehole.”

She contemplates that for a moment, running her thumb over the inside of his wrist. “No. It doesn’t. But I became the face of cancer for you. Maybe not intentionally, but I was the one fighting it for your daughter. I was her champion in battle and I lost,” she breathes out, throat tightening. “I began thinking you should hate me long before she died. I was waiting for it, you know? The moment you said those things, I’d told myself it was coming, back in...Christ, in December of that year. So when you said it to my face, I already believed it,” she admits, looking at him as a tear rolls down her cheek, disappearing under her chin.

To hear it, to know that his words validated something false in her mind, it blows his heart apart. If it was shattered before, now it’s obliterated, and he gathers her into his arms. “It wasna yer fault. I’m sorry. Christ, I’m sorry, Claire. I didna know. I never meant to make ye hurt the way I did. Not like that, not like this.”

Her face presses against his shoulder as she closes her eyes tightly. “I wanted to be here for you. I wanted to make it all okay somehow, but I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t.”

“Your job was no’ to fix me. That’s never yer job. We were supposed to get through it together, and instead, I pushed ye away and said things to make ye go. I thought it was better that way at the time. To make ye never want to see me again.”

That’s a revelation to her, and when she pulls back to look at him, face tearstained, she realizes he’s crying too. “What? Why, Jamie? Why did you think that?”

His head bows, jaw tightening as he tries to find the right words to phrase his answer. “Because I—” He stops, clears his throat, and begins again. “Because I felt so empty, Claire. I felt as though I couldna ever love enough again to make ye happy.”

“And now?” she asks, reaching up to cradle his face in her hands.

“Now, I ken I canna survive wi’ out ye.”

It’s a dangerous declaration and he knows it. He’s lost so many people, but his heart is stubborn, it seems. He loves her anyway and can’t see a way forward without her. For a few long minutes, they hold onto one another and he listens to her breathe quietly against his neck until she speaks.

“I miss her, Jamie. So much.” Claire’s voice breaks on that last word, head turning as she shifts to tuck her head against his neck.

Jamie’s arms are strong and sure around her, closing his eyes as one hand cradles the back of her head. “I ken it, _mo nighean donn_. So do I. Her wee laugh; Christ, I miss the sound of her voice.”

That’s all it takes for both of them to dissolve into tears together, holding one another. He can’t tell her tears from his, but he knows this is what it should have been all along. Eventually, they pull themselves together, dress, and drive to the cemetery. Faith’s grave is easy to find and he sees others have been here before them; stuffed animals have been left propped against the headstone, flowers and notes to his daughter. There’s a card, faded from rain and sun which declares on the front _You are 6 today!_. The first birthday she never saw. It’s more than Jamie can take standing up and he kneels, tugging Claire with him as he holds onto her hand tightly.

She’s wanted to bring something to the grave for a while, but a part of her couldn’t do it alone. If she’d never had Jamie she would have asked Jenny, but now, Claire reaches into her pocket and pulls out a letter, holding it in her hands and staring down at it, folded in a neat square.

“Sassenach?” His voice is quiet, thick with tears but still curious.

“I wrote this last August. Before you ever reached out to me. I needed to get everything out, somehow, so I wrote to her.”

After a moment of Jamie weighing the idea in his mind, he speaks quietly. “Would ye read it to me?”

Claire closes her eyes, feeling herself shake a little, but she nods, wetting her lips as she lets go of his hand to begin unfolding the notebook paper. “Are you sure?”

“Only if ye want to, Claire. It’s for Faith, no’ me.”

After a minute of hesitation, she looks down, reading aloud.

“Dear Faith.” Already, she has to pause, tears blurring her vision for a moment before she’s able to blink them away.

“I thought, the moment I saw you for the first time, asleep in your father’s arms, that I could save you. I knew I would. You were always so brave, always smiled, always looked so happy to see me, and when all of the medicine seemed to be making you better, I was relieved in a way I never have been before. I let myself fall in love with you. I can’t have a child of my own, but I thought if I could see you grow up, it wouldn’t matter.

But then you began getting sicker, and I couldn’t make it better. I tried, so hard for you, Faith, but it wasn’t enough. I know you fought too, but I also know you were so tired. You were brave and strong and you wanted to live, but your body was too worn out. As I held you and kissed you goodbye, I felt like a piece of me died with you. A future I’d planned in my mind no longer possible. Your fight, the one we fought together, was over.

I miss you every single second of every single day. Your light and laugh were incredible. You were the link between Jamie and I. You made me love again. You gave me an incredible gift by loving me, too. I cry for the time I won’t ever have with you, but I hurt most for your father. The things I know he hoped and dreamed for you, the pain he’s in but won’t let me soothe. I know his blaming me isn’t logical or right, but neither is you not being in the world.

Thank you, Faith. For every happy exclamation to see me, for every drawing you gave me, every laugh at my terrible jokes. I know that one day, whether it’s soon or years from now, your father and I will both be grateful for the lessons in strength and determination you gave us. Those lessons are what we’ll cling to now in order to make it through life without you. I would fight for you again. I will love you, always.”

By the time Claire finishes, she doesn’t need to look at Jamie, she can feel him shaking as they turn into one another and she falls apart, sobbing against his shoulder. Again, they hold one another and finally — belatedly — share their joint ache.

“Ye _are_ my strength, Claire,” he whispers fiercely into her hair, tucking her as close as he possibly can.

“And you’re mine,” she manages in return, closing her eyes.

They stay like that, wrapped around one another until the sky turns purple and gold.


	20. April 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone else is moving.

They’re tangled together in bed when Jamie shifts, grabbing his phone to check the time. When he puts it down, there’s a breath exhaled, arms wrapping around her for a moment as he kisses her forehead.

“I should go, Sassenach. It’s officially time to get back to running the bookshop full time. Which means I need to go home for a shower and clothes.” His lips find hers now, lingering and unable to pull away from her despite his words.

For her part, Claire shifts with him when he rolls from his side to his back, winding up draped across his chest, which makes his skin easier to kiss while she thinks. She doesn’t let him go anywhere, lips drifting from one side of his chest to the other before finally speaking.

“What if this was your home?” It’s a quiet question and the silence after is even quieter.

Pushing himself up against her headboard, Jamie looks at her as his fingers move through her hair. “Move in wi’ ye?”

Claire nods and sits up beside him, curling her legs under her body. “You’re less than a mile from the bookshop here, and from the shop, it’s not that far to the gardens, then back here. Right now, you have to drive all the way back to Lallybroch, then turn around and come this way again. If you were already here, well...you wouldn’t have to leave so early.” She isn’t unsure about asking, she wouldn’t have if she had any doubts, but nerves hit right at the last minute. “There’s no pressure, Jamie, you don’t have to, I only thought it might be easier.”

Twining a curl around his finger, Jamie tugs just gently. “Ye want me to move in because ye love me so much, or you’re worried about my mileage?” he asks with a soft, teasing smile. Sometimes, he needs to hear her say it; he’d very narrowly avoided ruining having this at all, so the reassurance right now, when things are still sliding back into place, is nice.

Granting him a soft smile, Claire shifts so that she can straddle his lap, knees on either side of his body as she leans in to kiss him tenderly. “I want you to move in, Jamie Fraser,” she murmurs before kissing him in a way that leaves them both panting. “So that I can have my way with you any time I’d like.”

There’s a sound made low in his chest as his hands splay over the smooth expanse of her back. “I suppose I have to, then,” he murmurs before grinning and capturing her lips again.

That weekend, Claire works to make space for all of his things while he packs, and by mid-week they’re knee-deep in boxes again, working through sorting through all of his miscellaneous items, when she gets to a suitcase.

Pink, with white hearts.

Swallowing heavily, she feels her heart knot in her chest before kneeling down and pressing a hand on top of the hard, glossy surface. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Claire unzips the suitcase, then exhales quietly before lifting the top. Right there, right in the center on top of all the clothes, is Trunky. Reverently, Claire picks up the stuffed toy she’d chosen especially for Faith and brings it up to her face, closing her eyes. It smells like her ( _baby shampoo, Lip Smackers bubblegum lipgloss, the pink baby lotion Jamie rubbed on her arms every single night._ ) and tears come unbidden as she clutches the animal to her chest. For almost a year, Trunky had been Faith’s constant companion, and he’s been in the suitcase ever since Jamie’s return to Scotland.

She doesn’t realize it when Jamie kneels beside her, so his touch on her shoulder makes her startle just a little in surprise, opening her eyes. Her gaze moves from his to the elephant, then back to him again. “I’m sorry, I should have asked if you wanted me to open this or not yet,” she begins, moving to put Trunky down.

“No. No, Claire, it’s alright,” Jamie promises, voice breathless with emotion as well, reaching out to touch the one thing that Faith had every single day she lived in Boston. “She loved this. Out of everything ye ever gave her,” he says, nodding down at the suitcase.

Claire looks back at the clothes and realizes as she sorts through it all that these are things she bought for Faith. Bows and soft pajamas, fun hats, silly, fuzzy socks.

“Ye gave her so much, _mo nighean donn_. More than ye ever had to. She loved you.”

Bringing a hand over her mouth, she looks up at him with blurry vision. “You kept it all?”

“Memories of you and her together? I wasna ready to give it all away yet. Especially if…”

“...If you never saw me again,” Claire finishes for him before wrapping her arms around him tightly. Pressing her face against his neck, she breathes him in, comforting herself before speaking again. “I love you. I won’t ever leave again.”

“Ye were right to. I didna deserve ye then. Perhaps I dinna deserve ye now,” he murmurs, rubbing her back.

Pulling back, her hands cradle his face. “You have to stop that,” Claire whispers quietly. “We’re here now, Jamie.”

Leaning forward, he presses his forehead to hers. “I love ye as well. Do ye ken it?”

Closing her eyes, Claire’s nose just lightly grazes the side of his. “I do, Jamie.” For a while they hold onto one another, Trunky between them. “We should donate her clothes. Go through them together, and take them to a local hospital. She’d like that, I think.”

“Aye. Knowing other kids had things they needed. It’s only…”

Raising her eyes, Claire waits for him to speak, thumb moving over his wrist. “What?”

“It feels as though I’m giving her away. Letting her go.”

“Oh, Jamie.” She presses a kiss to his forehead, then carefully stands and takes the stuffed elephant from him, standing in the middle of her living room before walking to the mantle above the fireplace. There she places Trunky, then takes one of the photo frames from Jamie’s boxes and puts it right beside the toy. A photo of the three of them at Halloween before leaving the apartment. Walking back to Jamie, she settles herself into his lap and leans against him. “We’ll never forget about her. Or let her go completely, not ever.”

His arms wrap around Claire, one hand resting lightly at her stomach. Kissing the back of her head, he murmurs softly. “Thank ye, Claire.”

“For what?” she asks quietly, unsure what there is to thank her for.

“For loving her so much,” he murmurs, closing his eyes and nuzzling the side of her neck. “For taking care of her. Taking care of me. For letting her be a part of your home now.”

Shaking her head, she covers his hand on her stomach with her own. 

“ _Our_ home, Jamie.”

They’re interrupted by soft panting, the tapping of paws, and she looks up to find Skye pausing to sniff things.

“Did I ever tell ye that Faith picked this dog?”

Claire shakes her head. “What? No. She had plenty of stories but neither of you ever told me that.”

“Aye, someone on a neighboring farm had a litter of golden lab puppies. Faith must have been about two, nearly three, and this one had her toddling after it. They chased one another, really. And when Faith sat on her bottom, the puppy that was nearly as big as she was pushed her over and licked her face everywhere. Ye’ve never heard giggles so bright and clear,” he remembers with a wistful smile. “I couldna say no when she asked.”

“Softie,” Claire whispers with a soft smile of her own, leaning back against him while reaching out to rub the top of Skye’s head. “You’re both home now.”

With a kiss to her temple, Jamie closes his eyes to breathe her in. “I dinna think there’s any place we’d rather be.”


	21. May 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's smut. That's it. Enjoy :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Call this the interlude before the downhill slide into the ending of the fic. Only 7 more chapters until the story is over!

Since moving in with Claire, Saturday mornings have become his favorite. The shop is manned by Jenny or Ian, Claire is off on weekends, and they can spend the time wrapped in one another until ready to get up and go about their day. Today though, there’s no such luxury as she has him up before nine in the morning, dressed and leaving to shop for shelving to go in their bathroom.

“More for me to put together?” he’d quipped, but they’d gone, stopped to eat first, and now they’re back home, him wading through pieces he needs to put together so that they at least somewhat resemble what’s on the box. She’s sitting on their living room floor, one leg sticking straight out, the other curled so that her foot is pressing against the opposite inner thigh. Her hair’s piled high on her head in a curly, sloppy bun, and Jamie has to stop what he’s doing to simply look at her in the soft gray shorts she’d changed into, the old and worn t-shirt she’s now wearing. There’s a pen between her teeth and her glasses are on as she looks over a grocery and other miscellaneous items list.

She’s never looked more beautiful.

“What do you think? Tacos sometime this week?”

He doesn’t answer her.

“Or burgers if you feel like cooking outside.”

“Aye,” he breathes out, still staring.

“‘Aye’ to the tacos or the burgers?” she asks, glancing up at him and then smirking at the look on his face. “Did you hear anything I said?”

Blinking a few times, Jamie finally focuses on her again. “What?”

Claire can’t help but laugh, shaking her head. “Am I truly that distracting?” She pulls off her glasses and puts them on the coffee table in front of her.

Putting his screwdriver down, Jamie strides over and offers his hand, tugging her up to stand in front of him. “Do you truly have no idea how beautiful ye are? Even just sitting, you look so bonny I canna take my eyes from ye.”

Her arms reach out to wind around his neck, looking up at him. “Is that so? Am I _too_ distracting?”

Ducking his head, Jamie lets his lips brush over hers. “Only if ye mind my wanting you,” he breathes out.

Slowly, Claire shakes her head. “I don’t mind.” She doesn’t think she ever will as she kisses him fully, parting her lips for him.

Reaching down, his hands cup that perfectly rounded backside of hers, hoisting a bit and relieved when she gets the hint, letting him lift as she winds her legs around his waist.

“Where are you taking me, Mr. Fraser?” she murmurs against his mouth.

“Against every solid surface of this apartment, if I have my way,” he shoots right back, turning so that once he steps forward a few paces he can lay her down over the dining room table.

Her laugh is swallowed by his kiss as it turns from sweet and questioning to wanting and needy. Tangling her fingers in his hair she bites at his bottom lip, shivering at his groan and obediently sitting up just enough for him to tug her shirt over her head, tossing it aside. When she settles back down against the table she whimpers at the feel of his mouth warm against the soft curve of her breast.

“We eat at this table, Jamie,” she breathes out, tugging his hair.

“Aye. Why do ye think I brought ye here?” he asks, even as his mouth blazes a path down the center of her chest, circling her navel with his tongue.

Claire’s laughter dies on her lips as soon as he tugs her shorts down along with the flimsy piece of remaining fabric. Once his mouth is on her, both legs drape over his shoulders as she shivers, gasping loudly and letting him wind her up with lips and tongue and then, _God_ , fingers. “ _Jamie_...”

He doesn’t respond with words, just a grunt of acknowledgment as he licks and sucks, lost in the taste of her. If she asked for this every single day for the rest of his life, he would never tire of it. Curving two fingers into her, Jamie strokes as his lips wrap around the small bundle; he’s only just started to suck when he feels her tense and tighten and then fall apart. Her moan hits his ears, the way she gasps and pants, and he decides he isn’t finished. He can bring her down easily enough, easing back, kissing her inner thighs. But before she can relax fully he repeats everything from before, eager as if she hasn’t just come.

Her hands shoot down into his hair as she gasps, jerking up off of the table save for her shoulder blades as she arches. She thinks words are coming out of her mouth but it’s nonsense, a series of sharp cries that raise in pitch until she shatters again. Tugging hard at his hair, she gets him to raise his head. “Give me your mouth, Jamie,” she gasps, breathless but needy.

Jamie obliges, moving up her body and capturing her mouth with his in a rough, bruising kiss before lifting her again.

“...Where?” she manages, as if there are many places to go and it actually matters.

There’s no answer as he walks down the hall toward their bedroom once her legs wrap around his hips, but he’s distracted by her mouth and presses her to the wall instead. Supported by his body and the wall, he feels her hands push at his jeans until both denim and boxers have fallen low around his hips and one small but confident hand wraps around his cock. It’s enough to pull a groan from him.

“There you are,” Claire breathes out, stroking him slowly before dropping her hips just enough to brush herself against him. “Do you want me, Jamie?” she asks against his lips, panting softly, drunk with pleasure and the power his lust for her holds over him.

“All the time, Sassenach,” he mumbles, eyes closed as she guides him into her body. Christ, every time feels like new. He’ll never tire of this, ever. Slowly, he pushes in as deep as he can, capturing her lips and a moan falling from them.

“Don’t stop,” she whispers against his mouth, tongue taking a moment to glide across his bottom lip.

“I’d be a fool to,” he whispers back before moving harder, grunting with the effort as he supports her.

With a soft _thunk_ , Claire’s head hits the wall behind her as her hips roll into his. “Faster,” she commands, opening her eyes to look directly at him.

“Are ye sure?” he gasps, blunt fingernails digging into her hips.

With a wry smile, her arms tighten around his shoulders. “Aye.”

That’s all the instruction he needs to begin moving with abandon, thrusting into her with want and passion, every sound and movement blurring as pleasure makes his belly warm and his thighs tense. Still, he wants to feel her fall apart around him and a hand sneaks between their bodies, thumb circling that bundle of nerves in a fast, urgent rhythm. It’s an awkward angle for his wrist, but he’ll be damned if he stops. “Come for me, Claire,” he pleads.

Those words from his mouth make her groan loudly. “Oh, God, Jamie, I--”

“Let go. Let go, ye can do it,” he urges while telling himself the exact opposite. Not yet. Not until he feels her.

She whimpers, the pleasure maddening as moves with him, chasing another climax that feels as though it’s endlessly building. “ _Jamie_.”

He hears her, watches her face for a moment, then ducks his head, biting at her shoulder lightly.

It’s the addition of a little pain that makes her jerk out of rhythm, coming around him with a sharp cry. His thrusts stutter before he moves deep and stays there, her name and more falling from his mouth as he spills into her. He can feel every pulse, every shudder, and he never wants to move again. Panting heavily, his forehead falls against her shoulder as they both try to catch their breath. Jamie can feel her hands moving lazily up and down his back and after a moment, he steps away from the wall, carrying her with him toward the bedroom.

The shelving and shopping can wait.


	22. June 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire has a heart to heart with Jenny Fraser.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't mean to panic anyone with my last chapter note! There's no more devastation coming, we're just a few chapters away from the end of the story, is all, I promise ❤

Claire has never ventured to Lallybroch without Jamie, but she’s offered to pick up the last of his clothes on a Saturday afternoon while he’s working on inventory at the shop with Ian. She’s nervous, even if she’s not entirely sure _why_. She gets along well with Jenny, they’ve never had an issue, but that was before Claire’d gone back to the States. She has no idea if Jenny has felt at all the way Jamie did, and it makes her stomach twist to think about.

It helps that as soon as she steps through the door, little Janet is pushed into her arms while Jenny holds Michael at arm’s length. The why of it is very clear in the way he’s naked from the waist down, but confirmed with a shout of _it’s like the diaper exploded!_ as Jenny makes her way upstairs with him. Which leaves Claire and a one-year-old to entertain one another. Sitting on the couch, she plays peek-a-boo with Janet, rewarding her with kisses to her sweet face and tickles along her side until her mother returns to whisk her away for a nap. Once Claire is alone, she sits back, able to hear a far-off giggle. She wonders, idly, how many children have grown up within these walls, how many still will. It’s such an old estate, in Jamie’s family for generations; she knows he and his sister both were born here and that Jenny’s children have been, but the number of births must go back quite a long way if it’s still a tradition now.

When Jenny returns, it’s with a tray of tea and biscuits that she sits down.

“You didn’t have to do all that, I only came for some of Jamie’s things.”

“It’s no’ a bother,” Jenny begins, pouring them each a cup. “Anyway, I wanted to speak wi’ ye and without my brother here to have a word in." 

Claire swallows, wetting her lips and trying to keep her face neutral. “Oh? Speak about what?”

As the tea is handed over, Jenny smirks. “Relax. I dinna mean to say I’ll be raking ye through the coals. It’s only that Jamie, for as brilliant at words as he is, can be verra thick-skulled.”

That does make her relax a little, and after taking a biscuit she settles back, taking a bite and chewing thoughtfully. “You know, with everything that’s happened, I haven’t really had time to consider how stubborn he is, but you aren’t wrong.”

Huffing, Jenny sits and folds one leg under her body before pausing suddenly, turning her head toward a distant noise before calling out, “James Alexander Gordon Fraser Murray, did I, or did I no’ tell ye no more sweets?”

There’s an almost imperceptible crinkling sound from the front room where a bowl of hard candies sits for guests, and Claire hears a small _sorry mam_ before young Jamie comes into view and has to pass them both to trudge upstairs.

“Anyway, as ye said, he’s stubborn. And I ken things are fine now, but ye’ve changed him. Only for the better. I mean, the therapy and the medication helps, but he was never going to be smiling again the way he is now wi’ out ye.”

It’s a lot to take in at once, and Claire sits forward a little bit. “You think I’ve helped him? Just since I’ve been here?”

“Oh, aye. I do. He was grievin’ something horrible, but it was still your name my brother called out in his sleep.”

That makes Claire go still, swallowing past a sudden lump in her throat. “I didn’t realize that. I had no idea he needed me before he ever reached out.”

“He didn’t either, that’s the Hell of it. He pushed us all away, Claire. Refused to see anyone but the bairns and even then, sometimes he’d come at me so hastily with one of the twins he was all but shoving a child into my arms because he’d hit some invisible threshold. At first, I didna ken what to do. We all tiptoed around him, afraid to make it worse. Weel, I’d had it. We went toe-to-toe one evening and I said some things I regret now, I do. But in the end, it made him realize Ian and I were right about therapy.”

All of this is brand new information, and she wants to ask what Jenny said to him, but it isn’t any of her business. “What does that have to do with Jamie needing me?”

“If ye dinna ken it, I’m no’ sure I should say.”

That earns Jenny a _look_ because of course, she’d wound up with all of this to _say it_. Now, she’s just delaying it.

“Fine. He loves ye, ye ken? He’s afraid of it, on account of all he’s suffered. Maybe this isna for me to say either, but I think it’s part of why he pushed you away. Aye, maybe he did say irrational things, but better to get rid of ye then while he could, before some horrible fate took ye away from him, too.”

Sitting quietly for a moment, Claire stares down into her tea and swallows heavily. It makes sense, what Jenny is saying.

“I was going through a terrible time too,” she offers. “I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to reach out to Jamie for comfort, but I felt like my grief was less. Faith wasn’t my daughter, no matter what sort of life I’d let myself imagine,” she says quietly.

“He needed ye to grieve with but he pushed ye away instead, like the _eejit_ he’s proven he can be. Now that you’re here and settled, he looks peaceful again, like some of the light is returning to his eyes. It’s a sight I wasna sure I’d see before I was auld and grey, only because I’ve seen mules less stubborn.”

Claire smiles softly before taking a sip of tea. “I hear that’s a Fraser trait.”

“Oh, aye, I’ll admit it.” Jenny drinks from her teacup, eyeing Claire. “Do ye love him in return?”

“I do, very much. We’ve said that to one another, you know.”

Jenny looks stunned, then scoffs. “No, I didna ken because my brother never tells me a damned thing. But I’m glad. Ye look different, too. Healthy and good.”

“I think,” Claire begins, running her thumb around the rim of her teacup. “That we needed one another.” She looks back at Jenny now. “We’ve both suffered losses that had us grieving, essentially, alone. He has all of you, that’s true, but it’s _different_. I wanted and needed someone beside me in the dark. I wanted to soothe him the same way. Neither of us knew how to navigate grief with another person when it feels so isolating to go through as it is.”

“And now ye’ve done that? Found peace and comfort in one another, I mean?”

The immediate answer is clear; they’ve been able to collapse into one another and now they’re finally healing, knowing each other in ways they simply couldn’t luxuriate in before. “We have. I never thought when I left that I would be back, let alone living here.”

Sitting back, Jenny manages to wipe the smug look off of her face. “I kent he’d realize what a mistake he’d made. I never said it, on account of Ian saying it would happen if it was supposed to, but. The moment he started calling ye again it was like he changed. Even if his purpose every day was only to speak to ye again, at least he had a reason to wake up. So I kent well ye’d be on your way next.”

“Psychic, are you?”

“If ye still believe in those sorts of things,” Jenny teases right back before putting down her teacup. “What I understand is that my brother blames himself for a lot of loss. Things that are no’ his fault and yet he finds a way. But when the fog clears and he can think, he realizes what he still has. And he still has you. The way ye love him goes a long way toward healing, Claire.”

“Do you think he has any idea how much he’s helped heal me as well?”

Jenny shakes her head, but then amends it to a thoughtful shrug. “It’s hard to say. He hurt ye and he knows it. Clearly, ye’ve both mended things, but he’ll carry it a while until he has proof he helped in some way.”

_Proof_. Claire thinks about that for a moment before putting her teacup down as well. “I’ll always try to take care of him, Jenny. The best I can.”

As they stand to head upstairs, Jenny pulls Claire into an impromptu and rare hug, chin just barely resting on Claire’s shoulder. “I ken ye will. Ye wouldn’t’ve come all the way back if ye had no intention of doing so.”

Claire walks upstairs behind her and realizes it’s true. She didn’t just return to Scotland so that Jamie could take care of her. She returned so they could take care of one another.


	23. July 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie searches for a perfect moment.

He’s been uncharacteristically quiet for days, and it worries her.

Claire’s tried to pull things from him, she’s tried to get him to speak to her, but he always seems so lost in thought; never upset, never sad, just in his own head. She’s slightly concerned, but trying to follow his lead and not smother or push too hard, trusting that when he says he’s fine, he is. Still, she’s surprised when he suggests they go to dinner at Rocpool in the near future.

“Isn’t that--well. Isn’t it expensive?” she asks hesitantly.

Her reward is a broad smile, his first one in days, as though some sort of weight has been lifted from his shoulders. “How often do we go out? One dinner date ye have to dress up for. ‘Tis all I’m asking.”

_Dress up_ , for a restaurant that’s reservations only. She should suspect, but she’s so relieved to see him smiling and happy that it doesn’t even register. Two nights later, while she sits across from Jamie looking over a menu of very expensive dinner items, Claire lets out a breath. “If we’re spending this sort of money, I feel as though I should get something _different_ ,” she says, squinting in the low lighting. “Christ, I can’t see anything.”

Jamie hasn’t looked at his menu once; he’s too busy watching her lean in and try to make out the small text in the dim room. It makes him smile to himself, the simple idea that he can take his time to memorize the way her eyebrows knit together when she’s focused, the way her lips part and her head tilts to one side as she thinks.

“Jamie?”

Blinking, his gaze focuses on her again, sitting up a bit straighter and grabbing his menu.

“Did you hear anything I just said?”

“Aye, ye forgot your glasses and canna see a thing. Dinna worry, I’ll take care of it,” he decides. “Might I order for ye?”

Claire puts down her menu and looks at him in amusement. “You know me so well, do you?” she asks with a teasing smile.

Reaching over the table, Jamie shrugs a bit as he captures her hand, though the confidence is written on his face. “I like to think so. Do ye trust me?”

Running her thumb over the back of his hand, she nods, sitting back in her chair. “I do. With more than just food, I hope you know.”

That means more to him than she might realize, especially after everything they’ve gone through--things that _he_ put her through. She may see it as an innocent and one-off exchange; for him it’s a privilege he’s earned. “I ken it, but I reckon I’ll keep proving I’m worthy of it for the rest of my life.”

It’s another hint, but one that she doesn’t have time to dwell on before the waiter comes to ask if they’re ready to order. With no hesitation, Jamie orders a braised pork belly dish with chilies, ginger and orange for her, for himself a Scottish beef sirloin steak. He also requests a bottle of wine, something red and full of body that’s brought to the table, uncorked and poured for them.

Once they’re alone again, Claire can’t help but wonder what has him like this, unable to fathom what’s warranted a night out with such a hefty price tag. “Is the shop doing alright?” she asks curiously. Maybe sales are going so well he wants to spoil her a bit with a good meal. She can’t say it bothers her much, whatever his reason.

“The shop? Aye, ‘tis fine. Ian did a braw job when I couldn’t, and I should do something for him, though I’m no’ sure what.” What do you give to the person who kept your business afloat when you couldn’t get out of bed? It’s a distracting train of thought that gets his mind off of the true reason for dinner. “Do ye think it would be enough to offer to watch all of the bairns for a long weekend? Let him go away somewhere wi’ Jenny?”

For the past two years, his family has done nothing but support _him_ , and it’s time to give something back in return. He paid Ian, but it isn’t about money, not to Jamie. There were days he would have rather sold the bookshop than think about running it, so for his brother-in-law, he’s grateful.

Claire’s face softens as she holds onto Jamie’s hand again across the table, squeezing gently. “I think that’s lovely. I could even help, perhaps we could go there and stay for a Friday evening through Monday afternoon? I’m sure I could take a day off to do it, and I could even keep the children so you could be at the shop on Monday.”

“Ye’d really do that, Sassenach?” Jamie asks, touched.

Thinking about it for a moment, she nods before reaching for her wine, taking a sip to gather her thoughts. “I would, Jamie. For family.” For a family that has treated her with amazing kindness and nothing less. “It’s a good idea, and you should offer it to Ian. Tell him to take Jenny somewhere with no alarm clocks and a comfortable bed.”

“They’ll need the long weekend for all the actual sleeping they’ll do the first day,” he figures with a fond smile. It _is_ a good idea, one he shared and she broadened, and Jamie files it away. Soon; after other important things he needs to do. The weight in his pocket comes to the forefront of his mind now, thoughts wandering yet again.

_He’d torn up the house looking for a box, antique wood with flowers carved into it that he remembered tracing with one small finger as a wee lad._

_“Where is it, Jenny, do ye ken?”_

_“We’ll find it, brother, dinna fash or panic yet.”_

_“I’m no’ sure where mam’s things wound up, especially wi’ Da grieving as he was,” Jamie’d worried, but just as he’d been ready to try the attic he spotted the edge of a box in the far upper corner of the closet. Reaching blindly, he’d pulled it down and let out a breath. “Found it.”_

_Their mother’s jewelry box._

_“Why do ye think Da didna bury Mam wi’ them?”_

_Jamie shook his head, then opened the box to find exactly what he was looking for. “Because of this moment, I reckon. Ye’re sure ye dinna want to wear them?”_

_Jenny’d shaken her head as she stood next to him, reaching in and pulling out a wedding ring and band. “Ian’s given me plenty. They’re yours, brother. And these.” A strand of pearls were pulled next. “She should wear them on the day.”_

“Sir?”

“Jamie?”

Once again, Jamie finds himself blinking and clears his throat, nodding at the waiter to put the plate with steak in front of him. “Well, Sassenach? Does it look as though I chose well for ye?”

Claire eyes him curiously. “I’ll tell you when I taste it. Where did you go, just then?” she asks quietly.

Not wanting to make something up too far from the truth, Jamie clears his throat, scooting closer to the table. “I was thinking about my mother. Dinna ken why.” There’s the lie, but one he hopes he’ll be forgiven for once it’s clear why. They eat, trading forkfuls of food across the table to share.

“Admittedly, I wasn’t sure about the pork, but it’s delicious, Jamie. You picked perfectly,” Claire promises with a soft smile. She isn’t ignoring the comment about his mother, but it’s something she decides to bring up again when she’s holding him, when she can soothe.

“I told ye. I know ye well, even if ye dinna ken your own palate,” he teases, though his mind is working through every possible moment there is to ask her to marry him. He still hasn’t figured it out by the time their dinner plates are cleared away, instead talking with her about getting a better leash for Skye, possibly spending some time going to antique stores on Saturday morning; they talk through dessert and when the check arrives he has a moment of internal panic. He still hasn’t asked and he isn’t sure why. He wants to, wants it to be a perfect proposal, but for some reason, the restaurant doesn’t feel quite right. 

They walk home, hand in hand, the moonlight making her look as though she’s glowing. It’s the perfect time to ask, he should do it, but before he can they’re at the front door and he’s pulled the keys from his pocket instead, letting them in. The evening, while nice, hasn’t entailed all he thought he would, and he realizes--as he hears himself offer to walk Skye while she changes--no moment will ever be _perfect_. He’s tried to make up for months of being so much less than perfect, but he should listen to her, stop trying to apologize in ways that aren’t verbally saying the words. They’re here now, they’re fine. It’s a revelation that comes as he and Skye round a corner; she doesn’t need something so grand he can’t even imagine. She just needs _him._

He’s never rushed a dog to do its business so quickly in his life.

Back at the apartment in record time, Jamie doesn’t hesitate now, making his way to the bedroom and pausing in the doorway. Dress off, she’s standing in front of her vanity and leaning over a bit in just a bra and underwear so small he’s not even sure why she wore it to begin with. Smiling at him in the mirror, she slides an earring out of place. He hears her say something about the walk not taking long but he stops her, tugging her hand and turning her around to kiss her deeply, one hand cradling the side of her face. It’s a deep kiss, one that leaves him breathless and wanting, but finally, he reaches into his pocket, hand closing around the slight weight.

“Claire, I need to ask ye something,” he begins, pulling back just enough to see her face.

If it gets her answers about whatever’s been going through his mind, she’ll listen to anything he has to say, and one of her hands reaches up to rest lightly against his wrist. “What is it, Jamie?”

That hint of concern is back in her voice, and he looks down, swallowing hard and then forgoing the entire idea to get on one knee. Instead, he holds her close and presses his forehead to hers. “Do ye remember that night at the apartment when we danced?”

Closing her eyes, Claire lets herself think about life in Boston, a small hint of a smile gracing her features. “Janis Joplin.”

His lips press to the tip of her nose. “Aye. That was the first time I kent how well ye fit in my arms. I held onto the feel of ye there, head pressing to my chest. I was afraid I’d never feel it again.” The comforting weight of her nestled right there, close to his heart.

“And now? Are you still afraid?”

Opening his eyes to look at her, Jamie steps back and takes her left hand in his, kissing her knuckles. “No. I’m no’ afraid, Sassenach.” Wedding band first, Jamie slides the rings onto her finger. “I dinna think I’ll ever let ye go again if ye say yes.” 

There’s a beat where she doesn’t understand what just happened before the ring on her finger registers and her breath catches. He’s asking her to marry him, even if an actual question never graced his lips. “Jamie--”

“I want to take care of ye. And Christ, I’m terrified. Terrified to love ye, terrified to lose ye, but since I’ve kent you, Claire, ye’ve brought me nothing but peace. I want to call you my wife,” he explains quietly, feeling as though he’s barely breathing.

“Yes,” she hears herself whispering, unable to take her eyes off of the rings on her finger.

“Yes?” Jamie whispers in return, thumb moving in slow circles over her temple, voice husky with emotion.

“Marry me,” Claire breathes out, just before her lips claim his as her own. As they kiss, one hand cradles his face before finally pulling back to look at the rings again. “Jamie, these are beautiful,” she murmurs.

“I know ye’re only supposed to wear the part wi’ the stone now, and I’ll give the band to ye at our wedding, but they were my mother’s,” he says quietly. “I couldna wait to see them on ye, both at the same time.”

“Oh, Jamie.” Swallowing a sudden swell of emotion, Claire blinks back fresh tears, pulling him into a tight hug and burying her face against his neck. For a few moments ( _longer than she means to_ ) she stays just like that, breathing him in until pulling back to see his eyes. “This is why you wanted to go to dinner? Is it why you’ve been so distracted lately?”

He smiles softly. “Now ye ken why. I’d thought to propose at the restaurant, but it didna ever feel as though the timing was right. It probably isna right now, either, considering ye may as well be naked in my arms.”

The laugh that bubbles up from her is sudden, and she can’t help but nuzzle against his cheek. “I’m glad you did it this way. Any other way wouldn’t be _us_ , Jamie.” 

Raking his fingers through her hair, Jamie bends just enough to kiss her softly, sweetly, but it quickly turns into more as his hands move from her hair down her back, around her backside, and then he hoists. As soon as her legs are around his hips he moves to their bed, carefully lowering her to the mattress. Gaze drifting, he lands on those flimsy undergarments again and his fingers skirt the lace at her pelvis. “These dinna seem to serve a purpose, Sassenach.”

Regarding him for a moment, Claire sits up and reaches out, cupping his very obvious arousal in her hand. “I believe they’ve done their intended duty quite nicely, really.”

Barking out a laugh, Jamie reaches to move her hand, kissing her palm tenderly before gently pushing her back down. “Ye dinna need frilly things that cost ye half a salary to give me a cockstand, Sassenach.”

“You might have told me that _before_ I bought them,” she teases, raising her hips as questing fingers tug at lace and push it out of the way. He makes quick work of her bra too, and when she’s completely bared to him, he steps back to undress with lightning speed. As he does, he watches her reposition herself until she’s against the headboard, sitting in such a way that no single part of her is left to the imagination.

If she was trying to make him useless, she’s succeeded. For a second he thinks he might speak, parts his lips, and then closes his mouth again. Relying on actions being stronger than words while he gathers himself, Jamie moves to the bed once more, tugging her until she’s flat on her back and he’s planted over her, kissing her until his body demands more oxygen. “Give me a thousand kisses,” he murmurs, kissing her neck. “Then a hundred and another thousand,” Jamie recites, kissing the hollow of her throat. “Then another thousand, then a second hundred.”

She knows the poem; over Christmas, she’d found a book in the library at Lallybroch and they’d curled together by the fire, reading. This one had struck her, stayed with her, and she’d found herself gravitating toward it over and over again. It was even saved as a note on her phone. So, as Jamie kisses and she arches, she manages to speak. “Then, when we--when we have performed many-- _ah_ \--thousands, we shall shake them into confusion.”

Jamie’s lips move around the curve of a breast, kiss the peak of her nipple. “In order for us to lose the count--” He’s interrupted by a loud moan from her and so gives her more, trusting her with the next line.

Eyes closed and one hand planted in his hair, Claire thinks through the haze of budding arousal. “And--and in order to--in order _not_ to let any evil person envy us,” she begins to finish, but then gasps as he presses kisses in a warm path down her stomach. For a moment she can’t think as his mouth blazes a trail across one inner thigh. “As no one will be aware of-- _Christ, Jamie,_ ” she gasps as his tongue glides home between her thighs.

Raising his head briefly, one eyebrow arches. “I dinna remember my name in this poem, Sassenach. Finish it,” he murmurs as he ducks back down, nose grazing soft curls, giving her a chance.

Slowly, Claire’s hands drag up and down his back, memorizing the map of his scars as she begins from the last line.

“As no one will be aware of how many kisses there have been.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't have an AO3 account and have been commenting anonymously, I've needed to turn off that feature. If you don't have an AO3 account but would still like to reach me, my tumblr (same user name!) is available for messaging! Thanks for understanding ❤


	24. October 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One single discovery can change everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to mention up here that this entire plot was done and written ago weeks and weeks before I even started posting this story. Where the story is going and how it wraps up was always the plan, and it’s funny to see all of the comments asking for exactly what happens, lol. I hope that doesn’t mean anyone will stop reading with such a short journey left! As always, I appreciate every single comment ❤ Yes, there is a time jump of a couple of months!

Wedding planning, Claire had assumed, was exhausting work. There was figuring out what documents were needed, getting together notice forms and statutory fees, wedding dress shopping with Jenny, finding a caterer, selecting guests and color themes. At least the venue, ( _the grounds of Lallybroch_ ) was easy and free. Having a beautiful old home as a backdrop on sprawling acreage couldn’t have been better, and she has a feeling they’d saved thousands with one easy decision. Still, all the planning for a November wedding was why, she thought, she was exhausted and stressed from the very end of August all through September.

Two days ago she’d woken up, gone about her daily routine, then vomited in the sink; everything happening too quickly for her to make it to the bathroom. When she was queasy again in the early afternoon, then ravenous all evening, she thought maybe it’d been a light stomach bug.

Then, she repeated it the next day.

That, coupled with intense fatigue and the slow realization she’d skipped her period in September ( _and was already three days late in October_ ) has her sitting in the bathroom now, holding a digital pregnancy test, reading and re-reading one single word: _Pregnant_.

How it’s possible, she doesn’t know. She’d taken the test just to quiet a voice in the back of her mind as a doctor unwilling to let coincidences slip by. She remembers the day she’d been told she couldn’t have children, the damage from the accident she’d been in with her parents, being crushed --pinned at her abdomen-- left behind too much that couldn’t be fixed--or so she’d been told. Because she doesn’t know for sure if this is viable, she decides to wait to tell Jamie; it’s too early, and if he has anything to fear or worry about she can’t do that to him right now without any concrete answers for him. Dinner is quiet, her mind elsewhere, and she’s thankful his response to it is not asking questions, just holding her close that night and murmuring a soft, Gaelic prayer across her forehead.

After pleading with a local office’s staff, she manages to see a doctor two mornings later. Clad in nothing but a flimsy pink paper gown, she’s quiet as the sound of her own heartbeat fills the room, steady and strong. With only a slight adjustment, the rapid pulse of her child ( _no bigger than the size of a single sweet pea_ ) fills the room, a muffled garble of thumping. 

_Eight weeks pregnant_. She’s approximately two months, and when she does the math in her head it’s so _obvious_ that she’s shaken. The baby’s in the right place, not growing along a fallopian tube or anything equally dangerous. Everything is _normal_ and she has the prescription for prenatal vitamins to prove it.

She calls in the rest of the day at work and nearly goes to the bookstore but decides to simply head home, sending Jamie a quick text that she isn’t feeling well and he doesn’t need to worry about walking her home. Laying down in their bed, she rests her hands atop her still flat stomach and closes her eyes, trying to imagine that belly swelling, having a soft roundness to it and giving life when she never thought she would. She knows with Jamie, if they’d ever decided to have a child they would have, but she never thought it would be a situation outside of adoption or surrogacy. It makes her cry, tears of joy ( _and some fear_ ) that she gets out of her system by the time Jamie’s home. Meeting him at the door with a soft kiss, she takes a brown paper bag from him and peeks in.

“Chicken and dumplin’s. From the place ye like that ye say has perfect comfort foods. Something easy on yer stomach,” he explains, watching as she moves to the kitchen to put their dinner down. “How do ye feel?”

Claire pretends to be busy for a moment getting bowls and spoons and napkins, but finally, she answers him. “I’m all right. Ready to eat,” she manages to say with a soft smile. “I’m not sick. I went to the doctor today.”

“Aye?” he asks with a small frown, though there’s relief in his eyes as well. “A person does no’ throw their guts up multiple times a day for no reason.”

“They do if they’re pregnant.”

She hadn’t meant for it to come out quite like that, and she looks up, locking eyes with him. Her on one side of their kitchen, him on the other, a countertop between them.

“...What, Sassenach?”

It feels so quiet a pin could drop and sound like an explosion. “Jamie, I’m pregnant,” she says softly, moving around to him and reaching for his hands. “About eight weeks, the doctor said. I wanted to be sure I really was and that everything was alright before I said anything.”

“Pregnant.” With one hand in hers, the other runs over his face before sitting in a chair. “I thought ye couldna--”

“So did I. But I was so young when the accident happened, my body’s had a long time to repair itself in ways I don’t think anyone expected possible. At least back then, when it happened.” Sitting across from him, Claire squeezes his hand between both of hers. “I’m having a baby, Jamie.”

There are a lot of reactions she expects; fear and anxiety are at the top of her list. He lost his wife in childbirth, after all, after being reassured that she was fine. What she doesn’t expect is the way he pulls her close and clings to her, one hand tangled in her hair and the other pressing to her back.

“I canna lose ye.”

“I know, Jamie,” she whispers. “I know. I wish I could promise, but I won’t. It isn’t fair to you. But I will tell you I’ll do everything I can to make sure I’m healthy, that our baby is healthy.” Her lips press to his temple as she feels his hand snake around to rest against her belly. “I listened to a heartbeat today. It sounds like a washing machine,” she says with a soft smile.

“So, the bairn is strong? And you’re healthy?”

“Everything right now is very normal, Jamie. The fatigue and morning sickness, and I’m sure any pending tenderness. All normal,” she tries to assure him.

Jamie stares at her stomach for a good long while before speaking again. “How long have ye kent it?”

She shakes her head to make sure he knows it hasn’t been long before the words even leave her mouth. “Only since the day before yesterday. I took a test but I didn’t think it could possibly be correct. I waited to tell you in case it wasn’t, or in case it was something else.” Something else causing a false positive. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Jamie,” she urges, mentally noting that she might suggest he bump his therapy back up from once a week to twice. At least for a little while.

Wetting his lips, he clears his throat and inhales deeply before letting it out slowly. “I canna lose anyone else,” he finally tells her. “To go through it again, I’m no’ strong enough. If I Iost ye at any point, or the bairn, I…”

This is is what she knew would be the biggest mental roadblock keeping him from being happy. She doesn’t blame him; to know how horrifically and quickly Annalise died scares her a bit, too. But still, she knows odds and her lips press to his forehead firmly for a moment before pulling back. “If there is ever, ever any sign of distress for me or the baby, we’ll go straight to the hospital, I promise. I might have one advantage Jamie, and it’s that I’m a doctor. I’ll know right away if something isn’t right.” At least she hopes she will. Whether or not that’s true doesn’t matter to her so much as soothing him right now.

Nodding, Jamie pulls back so that he can see her face fully. “I want to be excited, I do.”

Shaking her head, Claire relocates herself from her own chair to his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I know you’re afraid. I understand why, I promise. You don’t need to be any sort of way, I just need you here with me. Supporting me.”

“I’m no’ going anywhere,” he says vehemently, wrapping her up and pressing his lips to her shoulder. “The next appointment, I can go wi’ ye?”

“Of course. Every visit from now on. I know it was a risk, keeping the appointment from you today, and I would have told you if something was wrong, I just--you’ve been through so much Jamie, we both have. I wanted to have as much information as I could before saying anything.”

His lips press to her forehead this time. “No, no, it’s alright, Sassenach,” he assures her, resting his head against hers now. “I understand.” She was trying to protect his heart the best she could, and for that alone, he’s grateful for the different ways she loves him. “When’s the next visit, then?”

“Next month. Just after the wedding,” she murmurs. “Wait, hold on,” she remembers, getting up and going to the counter, picking up an envelope before settling herself on his lap again. Pulling out the ultrasound photos, she points out their baby. “Usually they don’t even do ultrasounds for this stage, but I insisted.”

Jamie squints a little as he tries to make out the photo but he sees the small little dot that is apparently life in Claire’s belly. “Ye ken what this is?” he breathes out, trying to focus on what he knows to be true, not what he’s afraid could happen.

“Hmm?” Her fingers lazily move through his hair, gliding easily through the curls.

“Proof, Sassenach. Living proof that through all of the pain and hurt, we made our way back to one another. We’ve loved one another.”

Blinking quickly, trying to push back tears ( _could she blame her sudden emotions on hormones yet?_ ) Claire presses her lips to his temple. “We can still make something good, and put that into the world,” she murmurs, covering his hand which has found its new home against her stomach.

“Aye, we can,” Jamie agrees, letting out a soft breath that makes her hair bounce lightly against her cheek.

“We can, and we will.”


	25. November 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding.

A wedding in November, in Scotland, will be wet. The weather is categorically rainy if not a little misty most days, especially in the fall. Everyone knew this the moment the date was set.

_Facts_ don’t keep Claire from having a slight panic attack when it begins to downpour ten minutes before the wedding and she still has to walk from Lallybroch proper to the large barn where the wedding and reception both will be held. Everything else has been perfect; her dress had to be loosened just a bit to make room for a little more fullness to the chest, but it was easy to take care of in the hands of Jenny. The barn, a brand new structure built for cattle that will arrive in the spring, only smells of fresh wood now, white lights strung up to give a modern-rustic atmosphere. Nothing has been out of place, no one’s surprised her with snags, but she’s in her dress, makeup and hair done, and can’t imagine walking through wet grass and mud to the actual barn. There’s a flurry of seeing if perhaps someone can simply drive her the short distance when Jenny excuses herself and starts speaking through a minimal crack in the door, hissing at who Claire assumes is Jamie about traditions and superstition.

“Sassenach,” comes his voice from the other side of the door, speaking directly to her now and bypassing his sister. “If ye let me in I promise it willna be bad luck. Besides, we woke together, what could change now?”

Taking a gulping breath of air and blaming her hormones, she nods at her soon to be sister-in-law and looks up as Jamie walks in. For a moment, she forgets everything at the sight of him in a kilt and tartan, hair loose and curls free but well-groomed, facial hair close shaven. Immediately she’s at ease as he kneels in front of her, taking one of her hands. “Ye ken we could get marrit covered in muck and it wouldna dampen any of the happiness?”

Swallowing, she nods, taking a deep breath and letting it out.

“Grab yer bouquet,” he says as he stands. Once she has it in hand, he simply picks her up, lifting her effortlessly.

“Jamie!”

“Ye’ll no’ worry about ruining the bottom of yer dress. Or yer shoes.”

It’s such a sweet gesture that she doesn’t bother to tell him her _hair_ is going to be a wreck. Not to mention her makeup. She simply tucks her face against his shoulder once he walks outside, laughing softly at how ridiculous this must look. “My hero,” she murmurs, not even sure if he hears her.

With minimal damage to her hair and makeup ( _damage that Jenny fixes easily_ ), the wedding proceeds as planned. Except for a brief moment when they need the rings; their wayward ringbearer decides to run toward freedom and the back exit of the barn. When Jamie jogs to catch him mid-ceremony and tosses him playfully over his shoulder, it warms Claire in a way that makes her reflexively press a hand to her still flat ( _at least when clothed_ ) stomach. This man was made to be a father, and that her body has given them such a sweet surprise is something she hasn’t stopped being grateful for. Shocked, but grateful. 

After the ceremony, his mother’s rings both on her finger, their kiss isn’t shy in front of a crowd that amounts to his entire family ( _Uncles and cousins she’d only met at the engagement party two weeks prior_ ) and Gillian. It has her turning a nice shade of pink as they part and the reception begins. It’s a long party, filled with plenty of whisky and dancing and stolen moments just for them. ( _Claire’s pretty sure Gillian is flirting with a man named Rupert, but she doesn’t keep tabs well enough to know for certain._ ) When they dance toward the end of the night and everyone’s in a happy but sleepy state, she rests her head on Jamie’s shoulder and sways to _Little Girl Blue_ , just as they had two years ago.

All parties must come to an end, and at one in the morning, they stumble to Jamie’s old room and collapse in bed, both of them too exhausted to do anything but remove clothing. When she wakes, sunlight filtering in through the curtains, Claire realizes Jamie’s still asleep--a rare thing, waking before him. It gives her the luxury of watching him though, her husband, heart aching in the best way as she manages to catch him smiling while he dreams. He’s beautiful, this husband of hers, and she reaches out to drag her knuckles along his scruff. Unable to help herself, she leans in to brush her lips against his softly. He never opens his eyes, never makes a sound, but she feels him kiss back just before pulling her closer. She’s very nearly on top of him as his hands glide down the smooth expanse of her back, coming to rest on her backside.

“Good morning,” she finally murmurs softly, nuzzling her nose against his.

Jamie hums low in the back of his throat, and when he speaks his voice is low and gravelly from non-use. “Mornin’, Sassenach.” He corrects himself. “Mornin’, _wife_.”

She grins and tries to kiss him at the same time before responding in kind. “Husband.”

One of his hands moves back around only to find hers, pressing their palms flat together, feeling their new wedding bands touch. He’d finally taken off his first ring at the same time Claire removed hers, placing them both in the wooden box his mother’s rings once resided in. The heirloom, freed from storage, now sits proudly cleaned and polished on their dresser, holding other precious things as well. ( _Jamie’s father’s ring, a brooch that once belonged to Claire’s mother_.) “What is it about ye, Claire?” he asks quietly, one finger now tracing the lines of her palm.

“What do you mean?” she responds, taking the opportunity to bend down and kiss him a little more fully, belly pressing to his while they’re both still warm and languid from sleep.

“I’m no’ even sure,” he tells her truthfully. “Only that to see ye each morning makes me love ye even more than the day before. How can I keep falling in love wi’ ye, day after day?”

“Do you have any idea that the things you say would make every woman in Scotland throw themselves at your feet?”

He chuckles softly before kissing her again, then nuzzling the side of her nose. “I dinna ken about that.”

“Oh, I do. You’ll have to trust me on the fact,” she murmurs as she repositions herself directly on top of him, pushing all of her hair to one side to better kiss him. It’s a deep kiss ( _they should have both gotten up to brush their teeth, but she doesn’t care and it doesn’t seem to be that he does either_ ), one that has her tongue lewdly gliding over his. Claire smiles to herself as she feels his hands gravitate toward her ( _apparently irresistible_ ) backside again, able to feel his want for her low against her stomach.

Slowly, her kisses travel downward in small swatches of skin at a time. She takes a moment to appreciate the pulse against his neck, sucking, then kissing before moving along the middle of his chest, nosing the hair there before continuing on her path.

“Where do ye think you’re going, Sassenach?” His voice is suspiciously hoarse.

Laughing quietly to herself, her tongue circles his navel, laughing again when she feels each muscle tense and then ripple into relaxation. “I have a plan,” she promises. “I’m sure you can guess it if you think long and hard.” Her words make her snicker, her own private joke.

“Oh, I have an idea, and if ye must know, both me and my cock believe it to be a verra _good_ idea.”

His words make her laugh outright, delighted to feel his hands in her hair and see the warmth of his smile before settling between his thighs. “With sweet words like that, how could I ever resist you, Mr. Fraser?” Before he can answer, her hand grasps the base of him, mouth covering him in slow, enveloping warmth.

Jamie is positive that no other pleasure on the face of the planet could ever compare to that of his wife taking him into her mouth, but still, he manages to speak somewhat coherently. “Ye never were good at pretending ye didna want me, Mrs. Fraser.”

It’s an appropriate call-out, but it only makes her more focused on the task at hand. It’s empowering, to know she can reduce him to wanting gasps and groans; a big hulking Scot who could likely murder with one cold and well-placed stare, made to whimper by her mouth. It’s incredible, and as she moves, one hand rests at his hip, lightly digging her fingernails into his flesh; enough to leave half-moon shapes in his skin. His responding grunt at the hint of pain mixing with pleasure has her looking for tells already that he’s soon to give over to pleasure.

“ _Mo chridhe, mo nighean donn._ ”

There it is. Not one but two of his terms of endearment for her, and in Gaelic, to boot. Raising her head, Claire kisses his inner thigh before shifting upward, leaning over him to kiss his throat as she guides him into her body. With a quiet sigh, she shudders as he fills and stretches her, rocking slowly for now. “How is this better every time?” she asks, appreciating the fact that pleasuring him was as good as foreplay for her, effortlessly rising and falling on him, unable to keep a quiet whimper from escaping her lips.

Jamie’s hands rest against her hips, rolling his own upward against her. He’s having a harder time focusing on words, and instead just shakes his head. He doesn’t know, but he feels it too, the way it seems as though pleasure is a fuse from the moment they begin kissing and touching. The explosion is inevitable, and together they can only delay the end result for so long. She craves the warmth and friction, gasping as pleasure prickles up her spine and back down again. As she rocks, she manages to grind right against his pubic bone, and once she figures that out, she’s shameless. Claire rocks as hard as she can into the motion, both hands spread on his chest as she does.

“There. _There_ , Jamie, God, don’t--stop.” Her words falter as her eyes close and she begins moving in a blur. She can feel his fingers tightening against her hips, can feel him straining with the effort to maintain control.

_”Tha mi gu bhith a ‘tighinn_ ,” he mutters; he’s coming, soon.

It isn’t the words she understands, but the fact that he’s speaking another language, and she lets herself go, crying out his name with her body bowed over his, foreheads touching, fingers wound tightly in his hair. When she falls apart she can feel the way her body tightens and pulls, trying to get him deeper, trying to make him lose control.

It works; Jamie’s eyes slam shut and he thrusts upward once, twice more, then wraps his arms completely around Claire, crushing her to his chest ( _soon, her belly will be too big for them to love one another this way_ ) as he spills into her. Together they pant, the sound seeming to fill the room. Slowly, she sinks down so that she’s laying right on top of him along his chest; in a moment she’ll need to get up, but for now, she simply listens to his heartbeat. Once she can breathe again, she smiles and kisses his chest one more time.

“That was a nice preview of our honeymoon.”

Both of them chuckle about it before Jamie pulls her up to snag her lips again.

“The rest of our lives, Sassenach.”


	26. April 2018

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quiet conversation in bed.

Very often throughout her pregnancy, Jamie slept in one spot and one spot only.

Down by her growing belly.

At first, he simply laid with his head directly on her stomach. Then, as Claire became too round to be a comfortable pillow, he relocated his head to rest right by her hip, a hand resting protectively on the swell where their child grew. Tonight is no different, and as Jamie settles, her fingers run through his almost too-long curls.

“How was our _wean_ today?” he asks her, propped up on an elbow and rubbing one hand over her bare belly. A perk ( _for him_ ) has been his wife being too hot at night for clothing. A large difference; usually she’s huddled against him ( _if not right on top of him_ ) for warmth. Now she sprawls out completely naked and with no blankets to cover her. It doesn’t matter if he’s freezing his bollocks off in the middle of the night as long as she’s comfortable.

“Not moving so much now. There’s no more room to really stretch. But there are tiny feet that like to play my ribs like a xylophone.” They haven’t found out the gender, deciding together that they’ll let their child surprise them the entire way, from conception to birth.

“I can feel the head, here,” Jamie notes, cupping the slightly lopsided curve near her pelvis.

“Nearly done and ready to make an appearance. Our child could arrive anytime now.” She’s been perfectly healthy throughout the entire pregnancy; no elevated blood pressure, no prenatal diabetes. She’s been the very definition of perfect health all these months, but she knows the closer they get to her due date, the more worried Jamie becomes.

Quiet now, his hand moves in slow, rhythmic circles before he bends to press a soft kiss to her stomach. “I canna wait to meet our bairn, but at the same time, everything seemed to be going _sae_ well before, I…”

“I know,” Claire interrupts softly, covering his hand with her own. “I know you’re afraid, Jamie. Anything could happen, I won’t pretend that isn’t a possibility. But our baby has a perfect heartbeat and perfect lungs. And aside from my arse getting _much_ wider, I have no complaints, either.”

He lifts his head to eye her, trying to gauge how serious she is. “Ye ken I think your arse is just fine this way, aye?”

She snorts and rolls her eyes.”Oh, _aye_. I’ve been made aware by the way you squeeze it every time you walk by me.” She loves it, even if she flicks his shoulder now in mock annoyance.

Somehow, his wife has a way of putting his mind at ease, even if he manages to work himself up again. She always brings him back down to reasonable and sane sounding. “Ye look like ye swallowed a basketball, Sassenach. Canna even tell you’re wi’ child from behind.”

“You mean my entire backside doesn’t give it away?”

They laugh together at that and he actually moves, shifting upward to kiss her lips softly. “No, but ye ken what does?”

The backs of her fingers graze the stubble under his chin. “What?” she asks, gaze warm as her head rests back against her pillow.

“When ye think no one is looking and ye stop to take a moment to rub your belly,” he reveals quietly. “Ye have such a faraway look in your eyes and the barest hint of a smile.”

“Do you know what I’m thinking of in those moments?” Claire asks him, moving her hand to cradle his face now. When she feels him shake his head no, she pulls him into a soft kiss before answering her own question. “I’m imagining you with our child passed out and snoring on your shoulder. I’m imagining the way it will sound when you speak to our baby in Gaelic the way you do our nieces and nephews. I imagine what it will be like the first time we’re here in this bed together with our baby on your chest.”

Their mouths come together again in an emotional kiss, one full of hope and promise. They whisper their wishes and dreams back and forth together ( _Hers; for their child to have his bright red curls, sense of humor and honor. His; her eyes and smile and heart._ ) and she finally admits something quietly in the dark between them.

“What if I don’t know how to be a mother, Jamie?”

His forehead creases as he pulls away just enough to be able to see her face in the shadows of their bedroom. “What do ye mean, Claire? Have ye no’ seen the way all the bairns at Lallybroch bypass me now and go straight to you?”

She smiles softly and shakes her head. “I know, but… I’m their aunt, not their mother. That’s different. I’m not in charge of their lives for the next eighteen years. I can’t even _remember_ my mother, what if I--” She stops short, huffing out a breath. “What if I’m terrible at it?”

Jamie sits up against the headboard and tugs her gently until her head is on his lap. It has her lying sideways across the bed, but it helps him in his goal of running his fingers through her hair. “There’s no possible way ye could be, Claire. Not wi’ the way your heart works. No’ wi’ how much ye care.” His hand comes to rest over her heart, feeling it beat steadily against his palm. “I’ve never in my life met someone who tries to put so much good in the world.”

Swallowing hard, Claire tries to blink back tears ( _Christ, these hormones_ ) at his words. “What if there are things I don’t know how to do?”

“I’ll teach ye,” he promises, moving his hand to her belly again. “And what I dinna ken, we’ll learn together. But ye willna be alone, Claire, I promise.”

Drawing him into a soft kiss, her lips part sweetly under his, both of them getting a bit lost in it until a very solid kick lands just below Jamie’s palm. “ _Ouch_ ,” Claire mumbles before finding herself repositioned once again, losing Jamie as a pillow with nothing but mattress beneath her head as he moves.

At her belly now, his lips press to her stretched skin before murmuring softly. “ _M’ annsachd_. ‘Tis your da speaking. _Bi sàmhach_. Let your mam rest.”

“What do those things mean?” Claire asks as her hand lazily moves across his shoulder blades while he presses more kisses to her stomach.

“The first, ‘my blessing.’ Because that’s what our bairn is and will be. A blessing,” he breathes out.”

Reaching for his hand now, she smiles softly and twines their fingers together. “And the other?”

“I only told our bairn to be quiet,” he chuckles quietly before reaching up and grabbing pillows to stuff haphazardly under his wife’s head before taking up his position for the night. “Ye need rest, after all.”

Adjusting what she needs to, Claire settles back with one hand in Jamie’s hair again. “I like it when you speak to our child in Gaelic,” she confesses, closing her eyes. “I want you to teach our baby, too.”

“And you, Sassenach? We’ll be speakin’ in circles around ye before long.”

She smiles sleepily now, then lets out a soft, contented breath.

“Good.”


	27. May 2018

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A baby is born.

This wasn't supposed to be possible. The accident had taken too much; there was scar tissue and damage and doctors all her life told her this moment would never, _could never_ , happen.

That's all she can think as she pushes, holding onto Jamie's hand so tightly that her knuckles are turning white. She can't remember the car accident when she was a child, she doesn't remember being pinned under a tire, but she knows she told Jamie tearfully one night in his old room at Lallybroch that she couldn't marry him. It was obvious, each time he held one of his nephews or nieces on his lap what he wanted. She'd watched him cradle the then tiny baby Ian, nestled so protectively in his arms, and that night sobbed that she couldn't give him a child.

She hadn’t known then that she was already pregnant.

Jamie thought after their first conversation about it, then the second just before their wedding, that one day they would look into adoption or possibly see about a surrogate. Now, he's made the mistake of watching the head of his child be born from his wife and he can't move.

His wife is having a child.

The sight of the blood makes him blanch a bit, though he stays steady on his feet and the sound of Claire grunting makes him move back to her quickly, abandoning his own fears and speaking to her quietly. “Our bairn’s head is there, right there, Sassenach. Listen to me,” he murmurs, trying to get her to focus. She’d had an epidural but it only numbed one side of her body; the way she’d cursed his name might have been funny if she hadn’t been in excruciating pain and he hadn’t been terrified out of his mind. “One more big push, aye?” he says, looking at the doctor just to be sure he hadn’t lied to his wife by accident. At the nod, he focuses on Claire again. “Maybe some other smaller pushes, but this one will be the worst of it.”

She doesn’t speak at all; mostly she’s a sweaty mess of curls and exhaustion. Forty-five minutes feels like an eternity when it seems she’s giving birth to a cheese grater. Claire does look at him to center herself, her eyes blown wide with adrenaline and determination. With the next contraction, she lets Jamie support her weight as she bears down and a nurse on either side of her holds her legs. Every _push, push, push!_ of encouragement comes down to a pinprick of sound at an almost muted volume; each voice sounds like a shout from miles away except for one, counting down from ten. At five, she feels Jamie’s hand move to lace their fingers together.

“Four.” His lips pause to rest at her temple.

“Three.” There’s incredible pressure; it makes her cry out, head turning toward Jamie’s.

“Two.” Between three and two the pressure bottoms out and she knows it means the shoulders are out and one other voice cuts through the fog. The doctor, she thinks, telling her to ease up, to give him one more small push.

“One.”

For a heartbeat, there’s nothing as the doctor suctions out a tiny mouth and tinier nostrils, and then every voice in the room comes rushing back as she raises her head in time to hear _it’s a girl._ Their baby is out and angry, _wailing_ with powerful lungs. Claire cries as a bundle of uncoordinated arms and legs wind up on her chest while her own arms wrap around a blue-hued baby. As the newborn cries, she begins to turn pink, and shaking hands rest on her daughter’s back. Claire looks for Jamie but he’s glued to the doctor asking if there’s anything wrong, if she’s bleeding, if her blood pressure is fine.

“Jamie, come here,” she calls softly as their daughter stops her crying under a receiving blanket and Claire wipes away the remnants of birth from her body.

Almost as if he can’t refuse her command, Jamie moves to her side, vision blurring as he takes in the sight of Claire and their baby, both of them seemingly spent. Nothing he’s ever seen has been more beautiful and he knows right then that she’s fine. They both are. In the aftermath, once the placenta is delivered, routine tests and exams are done, and their daughter has been weighed, diapered and swaddled, she’s placed right back in Claire’s arms. There’s a bit of guidance from a lactation nurse once it’s time to feed her, but when there’s a good latch the new, tiny family is left alone for the first time.

“She’s _sae_ small,” Jamie whispers, tentatively dragging his finger over the top of her head.

“Please tell that to my lower half,” Claire says with a wobbly smirk, still emotional. “She needs a name.”

He’s in awe of the wisps of red hair; there’s few of them, but the color is unmistakable. “The only name we ever truly traded back and forth was Brian Henry.” After both of their fathers respectively.

“I have an idea,” Claire murmurs, watching their nursing daughter. “What about ‘Brianna?’”

“Brianna,” Jamie whispers, a thumb moving over her forehead feather-lightly. “And a middle name?”

For a moment, Claire thinks of the possibilities. Julia, after her mother, or Elizabeth, after herself. But that red hair speaks more to Claire than anything. “Ellen. The grandparent we have to thank for her hair.”

Jamie’s lips press to the top of Claire’s head now, a grateful tear falling into her hair. “Brianna Ellen Fraser. Sassenach, I canna…” He has to stop, choked up as he clears his throat. “I canna tell ye how much it means to me, ye ken?”

“Oh, Jamie. I know. I understand,” she breathes out, turning her head in order to brush his lips with her own. Glancing back at Brianna, Claire’s eyes close, heavy with exhaustion before snapping them back open again. “I’ve never been so tired in my life.”

“As soon as she’s done, I’ll take her from ye, so you can sleep,” he promises. She seems bottomless for now, though her suckling is slower and seems to come in bursts before going still. It’s a pattern: nurse for a few seconds, drift, then come back to it. Jamie can’t stop watching her, and he lets out a shaky breath. “She looks…” He pauses, clearing his throat.”Like Faith.”

At the admission, Claire feels wide awake, looking up at her husband, ready to comfort him in any way he needs.

“A girl, Claire. Another wee lass,” he breathes out emotionally, but when he meets Claire’s eyes again, he’s smiling. “Ye gave me another daughter.”

Her own tears catch up to her and she lets out a grateful sob, sniffling as she wipes tears away with the back of her hand. “This wasn’t supposed to happen, Jamie,” she sniffles, watching as Brianna is finally deeply enough asleep that she unlatches.

“Here,” he offers quietly, taking their baby to rest on his shoulder, patting her back to coax a burp. “And perhaps not, but here she is. And ye were so strong. Stronger than me.”

“You looked below the belly, didn’t you?” she asks, resting a hand over the now smaller swell of her stomach.

“Aye,” he admits sheepishly. “Wasna expecting to see what I did, but there she was.”

“And we’re both just fine,” Claire murmurs, desperate to sleep as she relaxes, but she had to see this, had to see how impossibly small their daughter looks in his arms.

“Both of ye are perfect,” Jamie declares, lips pressing to a very tiny temple. When she burps it’s so loud that it makes him still for a moment and look at Claire. There’s a moment of silence before they both laugh as quietly as they can until sleep finally pulls his wife under. Making sure she’s covered and tucked in, Jamie sits in the chair next to her bed, cradling his daughter now.

“Hello, _a leannan_ ,” he whispers softly. “Do ye remember my voice? Could ye hear me, before?”

Of course, he’s met with silence as she sleeps, lips slightly parted in a tiny pout.

“I didna even realize how badly I wanted ye until ye were here in my arms. I was _sae_ afraid, ye ken? No’ anymore, though. You’re whole and healthy, same as your mother, and I’m verra grateful.”

There’s a yawn from Brianna in her sleep, shifting in her swaddle before her lips turn up just a little. It’s a small smile, and no doubt only reflexive, but it makes his heart burst in his chest to see.

“Ye have a big sister I’ll have to tell ye about,” he murmurs, stroking Brianna’s cheek with his thumb slowly. “She’d have had ye wearin’ dolls clothes in less than an hour of takin’ ye home,” he manages to laugh, swallowing heavily and shaking his head. It’s the first time he’s spoken so freely about Faith and not felt as though his heart might shrivel. 

“Already, ye make things better, _wean_ ,” Jamie realizes. As he looks from his sleeping wife to his sleeping daughter, everything he’s carried seems to shift and slide into place. There’s still a piece of grief in his heart for Faith, that won’t go away. But the pieces that once felt so scattered feel as though they’ve come back together.

Finally, he feels whole again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The very last chapter of DATRIL posts on Sunday. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts then, but for now, see you soon for the finale!


	28. May 2024 (Epilogue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An ending and new beginning.

“Ye could have named me a boy name,” Brianna declares from where she’s wedged between her parents.

“You would have liked to be called Brian?” Claire asks with a huff of a laugh, which causes her very large and well-rounded belly to move.

“A name is just a name,” she says, shrugging her little shoulders as Jamie chuckles with a warmth in his chest, dropping a kiss to her head.

“Aye, but I think ‘Brianna’ suits ye well, _a leannan_.” Jamie looks at his wife, the pair of them sharing an amused smile before he gets up, navigating boxes and dragging one back with him. Their family growing, a two bedroom apartment wasn’t nearly enough anymore, and with the last of the paperwork signed two days ago, they’re slowly making their way through boxes in their new home. He only regrets that the timing placed it directly on Bree’s sixth birthday. “Come here, to my lap, Brianna,” he instructs after lifting two things out of the box at his feet and putting them in the spot Bree’s vacated. “Do ye ken who this is?” he asks her softly as he puts a frame into her wee hands; the photo of Halloween with him, Claire and Faith.

“Mam and Da!” she says immediately before peering at the little girl in the photo. “That isna me. It’s...my big sister? Faith.”

Claire reaches out to run her fingers through Brianna’s unruly red locks. “That’s right, darling. Do you remember what we told you about her yesterday?”

Brianna nods in determination. “That she went to be in heaven and she takes care of me from there.”

Jamie’s lips press to the back of Brianna’s head, his healthy, happy and sweet ( _but Christ, so stubborn_ ) daughter. She’s celebrating a birthday that Faith never lived to see, and he both aches because of it and has never been happier to know Bree is thriving. “And she’ll take care of yer wee baby brother or sister too. Watch over ye both.”

“She kind of looks like me. We both have red hair! Did she like fishing wi’ ye, Daddy?”

“Oh, aye. She was a braw worm catcher. And tree climber.”

“So am I!” Bree says with delight before noticing a stuffed elephant next to her side. “This was on the fireplace at our old house, da.”

“Aye, next to this photo.” For a small little girl, she didn’t often look at or have any interest in the mantle, but he’s proud that she noticed.

“I like havin’ lots of pictures of my sister,” Brianna decides.

“Why is that my darling?” Claire asks softly, smiling just a little as their daughter rearranges herself in Jamie’s lap.

“Because then it’s like she’s really here still.”

It’s an innocent answer that gets to Jamie, closing his eyes as he holds Bree close, fingers playing with the end of a braided pigtail. “She was five when she had to go to heaven, _a leannan_. But she’s still your big sister.”

“‘Cause she was born before me?”

“Aye, lass. That’s right.”

Bree eyes her mother’s belly. “But I’ll be older than my new brother or sister?”

Claire takes Trunky and presses the toy into Brianna’s hands. “Yes, darling. _You_ will be a big sister. And as the big sister, you get to have this. His name is Trunky and he makes all little girls and boys very brave and very ready to do _anything_.”

Her eyes widen now, and Bree looks absolutely enchanted. “Anything?”

“He’ll even make sure ye ken we still love ye verra much. A new bairn canna change that.”

“There might be a lot of crying, and the baby might be loud sometimes, and we’ll have to pay a lot of attention to her or him. But as long as you have Trunky, you’ll always know how much we love you. You just hold him tightly, alright?”

Brianna nods and holds onto the toy with both hands, looking down at it. “Okay, Mama.”

Three weeks later, as her new baby brother fusses, warming up to a full-blown cry, Bree sneaks into his room and stands at the crib, whispering. “Shhh, Alex, it’s okay.” When he doesn’t stop, she looks down at Trunky in her hands and presses it through the bars to rest against his side. “Trunky will keep ye safe,” she promises.

When he calms down and peers at her ( _focused more on the sound of her voice_ ), she grins at her success, then whispers again.

“Thank ye, Faith.”

_Nobody knows how the story ends_  
_Live the day doing what you can._  
_This is only where it began.  
_ _Nobody knows how the story ends._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. It's over. Over on my tumblr, I wrote an appreciation post that described a little about why I wrote this story, also celebrated every mood board which you can read it here:
> 
> https://desperationandgin.tumblr.com/post/185614493983/deep-as-the-road-is-long
> 
> I just don't know how to express how appreciative I am of everyone who enjoyed this story. I have a ko.fi page where you can catch updates on what I'm doing next which is here:
> 
> https://ko-fi.com/desperationandgin
> 
> Thank you again to everyone who read, commented and shared! I can't wait to start posting my next-multi chapter story. You only have to wait until July 16th! 1 month from today ❤


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